On the topic of how flatness of FR (among other things) influences the presentation...
As many of you already know, there are Convolution filters by Mitch from Accurate Sound for SR-1 and CA-1 headphones.
You could have a perfectly flat (within reason) response of those two headphones, but how close that flat FR has brought them together, it's up to each listener to decide, but it didn't make them sound the same.
Also, neither the other 20 different headphones that Mitch made the filters for, sound the same after the filter is applied.
Now, has that bringing to FR flatness improved the presentation of many of those headphones for a good number of people? Yes of course, no doubt about that.
If the wish would be to have almost perfectly flat response, that wish can be easily granted by Mitch.
It is just a matter of a few weeks when we will be able to send Mitch the new headphones, as that has been arranged long ago, so once he's done, everyone can try how that works.
So, if you are sensitive to what sort of deviations from a perfectly flat response that I used to create a certain presentation I wanted, you are definitely not bound to it.
You will be able to try how FR accuracy competes to my "artistic interpretation" and if you would prefer it, I would only give you a friendly nod, as I was just like that until maybe 5 years ago and I can't go against notions that my younger self held quite high. It's pretty much just a matter of what phase as an audiophile you're in.
This also means that using the FR to judge the SQ of headphones is rendered irrelevant, as Mitch can get you any headphone FR-flat, literally any.
As I've said before, new tools are available, DSP can change the game, so I'll go with my own feeling of what is a good presentation and offer that.
Nowadays, FR accuracy (and then some) can be achieved with DSP, so fussing about FR really makes no sense. There already are well established speaker companies like Kii, Dutch&Dutch that rely on DSP and there's nothing to measure about them, you will learn nothing of their sound by doing so.
We are able to incorporate objective accuracy into our products, courtesy of Accurate Sound, as we look into what future brings and we welcome it.
All manufacturers are welcome to endorse what Mitch does and I don't know how's that going, but I certainly do.
Trading FR graphs around the web has no point any more for me, as you can easily choose to enjoy objective accuracy with our ribbon headphones. Been there, done that, and we're about do it again.
Simply, we're not going to leave any potential quality gains unexplored and not offer it to our audience.
(Sorry if this post seems to broken up, but I've had several phone conversations since I started writing it 3 hours ago, so many other thought have been interrupting the train of thoughts for this post)