and not at all to recording of 'classical', even today - at least I've never heard of a full orchestra sound being 'tuned' for car speakers (or compromised because of noting those results). Certainly true though, especially with the gadgetry now available - what you get will never be from 'a straight wire with gain' from classic Neumann mics, say.

But since the 'Reference Speakers' are inextricably a part of the listening room, having its reverb-time and other qualities: there really is no such thing as a Reference Listening Experience\ufffd (as in NIST-calibration, say). And an anechoic chamber just never would be a useful way of evaluating a music performance, much as it is useful for quite a lot else. We simply cannot relate ears + brain to music 'played' in such a Dead environment.

(I recall seeing pics of a guy's listening room, eons ago: he had made one wall the end of an exponential horn, cast in concrete; grille cloth across this maw, attention paid to no parallel walls or simple integer relationships of wall sizes etc. Suitable drapes, furniture etc.) This was quite pre- billions of transistors and 5000 controls you can set funny. This I deemed excess but not silly, whereas much marketed today is entirely Faith-based Expensive-snake oil, where any proposed double-blind tests are anathema to the hucksters. (Bob Pease, Chief Sci. at National Semiconductors and an anointed Analog Wizard -- did some hilarious takes on this.)



But then, too many million words have been wasted already -- imagining to separate the measurable from the subjective in recording/listening. Just like religion, audio has its Fundies, too. It's What We Do cha cha cha

moi