Pro loudspeakers good for home hi-fi?

Reading a lot elsewhere recently about using large professional monitors for home audio and also a comment about how music is mastered for distribution.

From my own experience in a studio many years ago, the final production mix was checked to sound good on loudspeakers thought to be typical of those found in most homes. In the old days these were Auratones and of course the Yamaha NS10.
However if a piece of work is, lets say 'adjusted' for good sound through such designs, it follows that they no longer sound optimal through a full-on, flat, wide-band monitor.

Therefore, it is desirable to use large pro monitors for home use, and especially where there is no means of adjusting the sound balance?
Could this be the reason many audiophiles (the real ones ) tend to prefer something less full range and explicit when playing commercial material?

Also, you'll often find that specialist audiophile masters sound better on the larger pro monitors, and is this because they've not been compromised for playback on smaller, more limited systems?

I've often found that heavily compressed and processed music sounds better on a decent portable radio than it does through a hi-fi. Can we take that a stage further and say that for most commercial material out there, some limitation built into the home hi-fi might actually be a good thing?

Think of a photo taken on a high-end digital camera but then subjected to massive lossy compression because it's intended to be viewed at 2"x2" on a mobile phone.
Looks great on the phone, but now print it at A4.....

I'm not arguing against the use of big pro monitors, but perhaps we at least need the means to manipulate the signal we feed them for 'best effect'.

Lot's of questions and I've no firm views, just thoughts.

 

Pro loudspeakers

I use 15 inch Dual Concentric Tannoys for my main listening. I guess that these may fall into the general area of pro speakers that you refer to.
I have used different amp set-ups and sources over the years with these speakers and agree with a lot of what you say.It is for that reason that I always come back to a Quad system.I have tried other amps but invariably miss the corrections available on the Quad.I can roll off the top in stages,I can roll off the bottom in stages and tilt up or down around the middle.I have never found ordinary tone controls to be anywhere near as effective in tailoring the source to something I want to hear.Most of the time the controls are switched out but when they are needed they do the job nicely.
I have a theory that the reason a lot of people keep changing equipment is that when they get into some of the high end stuff they are convinced that some form of tone control is not necessary.This results is them always trying to find a perfect system that plays all music the way they would like to hear it.But since the sources are not all perfect this just isn't possible.
In addition to the Tannoys I use a pair of LS 3/5As for some other listening on a smaller system and these definitely don't respond to some of the sounds that I don't want to hear anyway.I am thinking here mainly of some announcers/DJs who seem to be broadcasting in lagged tunnels with the bass control turned to maximum.
Pete.

 

Bit more pick and mix than just using monitor straight off but I use a lot of pro drivers in my system.

I used Eminence 15" Kappa Pro LFII's in my GRF cabs with a horn a top when I started out on the horn adventure.
Crossed at the same 1000Hz as for the HPD's/Golds.
I preferred the bass to the HPD's.

I now use the same LFII's in a pair of tapped horns and a pair of Kappa 15A's in the mid bass front loaded horns.
The pro bass drivers are great. Cheap, powerful, sound great and are easily obtainable. I got them from Bluearan.

For mid range I use JBL2482 phenolic compression drivers - now in a tractrix 200Hz horn. These are vintage now.
I will test a BMS 4592 ND compression driver on this horn soon to evaluate.

For upper mid I use JBL2435Be compression drivers in 600Hz horns. These drivers are scavenged out of the very expensive JBL Vertec sound reinforcement arrays. They type of thing you find a big pro venues. I have found they can sound very good mated to the right horn and with a sweet SET amp to power them...
I have it in mind to test a pair of Beyma TPL-150 air-foil ribbons in their place to see if they are all they are cracked up to be... Seem to be talked up by a couple of hifi'ers very strongly.

For tweeting duty I use Raal Lazy ribbon tweeters.

So, a lot of pro gear all in all. Set up sympathetically it sounds amazing as a hifi - it will play very loud too as demo'd at Scalford but that's not really what it is all about.