bdpf, this is the thing, and what makes speaker auditioning somewhat dangerous--sometimes an inaccurate speaker will grab your attention. Why? Because it calls attention to itself. That's why sales guys usually crank up the bass in the showrooms. It's attention grabbing, no matter how bad it sounds.
The problem is, over time this heavy bass, or other over-accentuated frequency, may get tiring to your ears. That's why I like to spend as much time as possible with new speakers.
Also, most speakers we come across, car stereo, clock radio, boomboxes, have some kind of distortion that we've trained our ears to accept as normal. Sometimes, when we hear a well-balanced speaker, our ears may not like the sound right away because they are used to the other, potentially, cruddy speakers.
