"“Modern, with a touch of English”. " -
ROFLMAO! ;-)
well, I like my old English Tannoy Gold Lancasters.. Not yet found anything they cannot sound good playing - Even the EW sounds ok through them! ;-)
But the crunch is the cost - And I think this is true for many things.. There are some classic bits, and many of these are vintage.. Modern Tannoys sound great to my ears - But nothing I have ever heard matches the Golds - Have had them for >30 years now, bought them for £35 in appaling condition (cabinet and crossovers butchered, but drives ok) and got them back to mint.. They sell for about £1500 today.
So, to me, "English with a touch of modern" would be much more appealing than “Modern, with a touch of English”. ;-)
I think the difficulty with speakers is that every speaker colors the sound in some way, or alters the sounds axis (one of the really nice things about the Tannoy design - all frequencies originate from one source).. Yes, you can get a spectrum plot - but this will be different if you relocate the speaker or change its cabinet..
So its not something a manufacturer can easily have a specification war over.. It comes down to subjective tastes of those who hear them - One of the most popular Bose speakers has a sound I cannot tolerate at all - the damn things are used in many venues, and they irritate the hell out of me... But most people love them (or certainly arent bothered by them) - But there are some Bose that sound good to me.
And this is the reason I avoided getting into this thread - People often get quite passionate about speakers, and often rave about their speakers which to me sound horrible or dull or both.. If I was looking for a quality speaker I would not buy a Behringer, but every Tannoy I have heard has been good.. Oh, the speakers in my Yamaha PDP-400 (keyboard) are astounding - So Yamaha drives may be worth checking out.. But then my PDP-400 is vintage now - Perhaps I just like vintage... Or perhaps the days of real Hi-Fi have gone and "modern" is just a con - What they really mean is "MP3 quality".
Fred.