It's not fair comparing speakers to headphones/earphones, because speakers have to move a lot more air. Cheap earphones can have excellent bass response because they're coupled directly to the eardrums. The NS10s only have 18cm (7in) woofers, so it's not surprising their -3db bass cutoff is 70Hz. As "Hoffman's Iron Law" of loudspeaker design says: deep bass, small size, high efficiency: choose two.
> It's not fair comparing speakers to headphones/earphones
True, but we are not comparing for the purpose of finding the "best value for money", we are trying to find an answer to the question: do the NS10s reflect the situation of today's average listener? My argument is that they suck so much that they are now below average... So I think they're not the right monitor choice in 2017
>Those "speakers" are not meant to be a primary sound source
What the manufacturer means doesn't matter, the real-life use does, and there they are often the primary sound source (if only by the virtue of being the only option available when one doesn't have their headphones handy, or, even more often, wants to share sound with someone).
>I have heard some phones from HTC that sounded MUCH better than NS10.
Maaaaybe. Now try something that's not a flagship, but what 98% of the people have.
There have been high quality loudspeakers available since at least the 60's, and arguably since before then. For example the quad electrostatic from 1957 or there abouts, a selection of which far exceeds the quality of apple earbuds or similar. Or Grado SR60's from 1992 or Stax SR1 headphones from 1960. Or Hartley loudspeakers evolved from an idea originating in the 1940's.
My brothers studio, where music for UK film and TV music was made, had NS10's as near fields. They sounded atrocious, I mean really bad. Leaving aside their electromechanical benefits, which are pretty well covered in the article, the accepted notion was that if you could make sounds sound ok with them with all their colourisation, then you'd get a fair result on televisions, radios and so on. In fact thinking about it, if you wanted music to sound good on Beats, then they'd still make a good reference choice.
