Program material and recording quality strongly determine audibility of speaker defects

Evidence

The ability to hear differences in sound quality is greatly influenced by the choice of program material. The audibility of resonances is affected by the repetitive nature of the signal, including reflections and reverberation in the recording and in the playback environment (Toole and Olive, 1988). The poor frequency response of some well-known microphones is enough to disqualify recordings made with them, whatever the merits of the program itself (Olive and Toole, 1989; Olive, 1990). Some of the historically popular large diaphragm units have frequency responses at high frequencies that would be unacceptable in inexpensive tweeters. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 1134

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s psychoacoustics thread: ‘recording chain accuracy limits what audio evaluations can reveal’ is a classic audio-engineering caveat.
• QUESTION: Which specific historical large-diaphragm microphones had such poor HF response? Worth chasing for concrete detail.