Blind listeners largely agreed on loudspeaker preferences, matching measurement quality

Evidence

The results surprised everybody. The audible differences were enormous, but there was general agreement about which ones were judged to sound good. It remained a topic of discussion for days. Where were the expected personal preferences? And, equally interesting, was the observation that the most preferred loudspeakers had the best-looking anechoic measurement curves, suggesting that flat and smooth might be the objective. Some of the loudspeakers did, in fact, sound as bad as their measurements looked. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 69

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the book’s own later chapters on the correlation between flat anechoic response and preference; also to general literature showing listener consensus in controlled blind tests.
• CANDY: A 1965 ‘Friday-afternoon’ listening test overturned the assumption of endlessly personal audio preferences — great trivia for audio-nerd conversations.