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As you probably know Roy Allison passed away recently. David Moran did an excellent piece on Roy as both a speaker designer and person. One of the things that was most interesting to me was one of Roy's statements about reproduction flatness that is shown below. Very smart cookie that Roy Allison.

Tom

Ideally every element in the reproduction chain should be flat, with
deviations from flatness (when desired) controllable by the user. This
should include loudspeakers too, of course. But even if it were practical
to make such loudspeaker systems at reasonable prices — which it is
not — what could be done about the hundreds of millions of loudspeakers
in use now, all of which do have rolled-off high-frequency power output?

The answer is that you continue to make records that sound properly
balanced when played on these loudspeaker systems, or you won't sell
records. Thus records will continue to have inherently a ‘brighter’ balance
than is intended by the recording engineer to be actually heard. That will
be true of ‘concert’ recordings, jazz and chamber recordings, and even
ambience-type four-channel recordings. Playing such records at home
on truly flat loudspeaker systems will produce a sound considerably
brighter than the producer had in mind.

Always loved the Allison sound.

Still have a pair of Allison Model 2's to refurbish. One tweeter is shot and has the wires, and my spare has the terminals. Just need to get some wood work to fit it and running as a friend wants them.

Also have some Model 6 cubes that I am getting the parts from for the model 2's.

Helped another friend find a pair of CD-9's and still has them in his living room with the Hafler system I had.

I always liked the sound of the few Allison's I have hear dbut......
Personally I have to disagree with the quote.

with all the variables in a system I feel one should start with a flat recording, or at least an attempt to being true to the original.

I know there is no such thing as a flat recording, but pumping up the highs because of an assumption that my system may be lacking at the top end is a direction that goes against my grain (no pun implied)

I was at both RMAF and Axpona this year and I heard systems approaching $1mill. The majority were very hot in the top end to these 71 year old ears to the point that I had to leave the room. I do think that some of what I heard was this trend of striving for the absolute highest resolution, detail, and transparency that has nothing to do with what music is all about. I really feel that today's designers have never gone to a live musical event, and have forgot what a piano, or a cello sounds like.