Designers use models (from electrical filter theory) to predict the performance of drive units in different enclosures, now almost always based on the work of A N Thiele and Richard Small.
Important driver characteristics are: It is the performance of a loudspeaker/listening room combination that really matters, as the two interact in multiple ways.
A dead or inert acoustic may be best, especially if properly filled with 'surround' reproduction, so that the reverberant field of the original space is reproduced realistically.
[citation needed] It is in large part the directional properties of speaker systems, which vary with frequency that make them sound different, even when they measure similarly well on-axis.
In the 1930s, one of the leading experts on loudspeaker acoustics was N. W. McLachlan, author of Loud Speakers: Theory, Performance, Testing and Design.