Program material choice determines which loudspeaker or room flaws get revealed

Evidence

Program is a major factor because recordings vary in bandwidth, spectral balance, spectral density, loudness fluctuations and so on. These interact with all other variables. If the recording lacks low bass, the advantage of a wide-bandwidth loudspeaker is not revealed, or a problem room resonance is not excited. If a recording has predominantly vocal or single instrument content, troublesome loudspeaker resonances may not be revealed. Spectral balance variations such as excessive or insufficient treble or bass obviously bias the evaluations of loudspeakers, and they interact differently with room acoustic characteristics. There are many such interactions happening in listening tests. — Toole, Floyd E, Sound reproduction- the acoustics and…, 548

Categorization

• SEED: A practical essay angle: how choosing test tracks biases what audio reviewers can possibly hear — a critique of speaker-review methodology.
• XREF: Mirrors the signal-vs-noise problem from psychoacoustics: which input features of a stimulus excite which detector/receptor populations.