I understand your cynicism about testing methodology, and no doubt would feel closer to you if I hadn't been there and experienced it myself. That's why I write it's impossible to be impartial.

Perhaps part of the trust that I have comes from dealing with designers and engineers in Northridge rather than the marketing and accounting departments. Since the love of my life is an MBA, I won't rail against them, but thank goodness I didn't have to talk to any MBAs while I was there.

I will say that when the speaker changing apparatus was revealed to us and we could see the speakers utilized, they were all of comparable design: rear-ported, towers approximately 42" high, drivers arranged in a single row from top to bottom, cabinets deeper than wide, baffles all of similar width. One was narrower at the top and wider at the bottom due to its use of an actual 14" woofer. The apparatus shuffles them all to the same central position, so they're always the same distance from any wall and the same distance to the listener's position, and I purposely took in an SPL meter (in my big pocket) to assure the SPLs were the same. There was only one set of electronics driving them, though it's certainly possible that the setting had been tweaked to favor one over the rest. I saw no evidence of that, but couldn't attest to it in court.

Did I mention it's one speaker at a time--no stereo pairs? It's a comparison of a single speaker centered on the apparatus to other single speakers centered on the apparatus.

I didn't think about and in retrospect cannot discern a way to accommodate speakers that require corner loading. Of the many speakers I saw waiting in the wings to be loaded into the apparatus, I saw none that would require it in order to perform as designed.

There's no doubt it is an imperfect model, yet it is far more sophisticated and applicable than anything else I've seen, so I credit it as an honest effort, far exceeding anything the typical advocate for DBT can pull off. If there were an adequate range of independent tests, I'd be all for it, but it appears only Harman has both the money and the will to do so at this point.

Rather than spend too much time considering what is not available, I just try to be as honest with myself as I can with what is available, and, of course, I depend on my personal preferences to guide me toward happiness.

As I wrote, Dellasala's opinion piece has some points worth considering; it also has some points not worth considering. Thanks for the link. I did enjoy the read.

Now I'm going to listen rather than write about it.


* Sorry the forum software won't let me use all CAPs in the title.