Update 3/11/14
I went ahead and took the CSB-1s and RC-10s outdoors today to do some free field measurements. It didnt really turn out as expected. For some reason there was a nasty dip at 200hz with all speakers tested, there was also another dip, although not quite as significant at 500hz. I cant figure out why those dips occurred. So I decided to forgo posting any graphs. However, I did get agreeable, and what I believe to be accurate data from 20hz to 100hz and from 1khz-20khz. I will summarize the results.
Measurements were done with a UMIK-1 calibrated microphone and taken with REW, 1/3 octave smoothing. The microphone was about 2m away from the speakers with the microphone aimed between the tweeter and midrange. I tried to get as far away from any reflective objects as possible, I placed the speakers on the grass(on stands) to avoid any floor bounce. I took 2 measurements, and averaged them. Surprisingly even with a highish noise floor(I did the sweeps at high volume to compensate) the difference between the sweeps was pretty much non existent. They were within tenths of a dB.
The RC-10s are very flat throughout the midrange, they measured to within +/-1.5dB from 1khz to 20khz. The CSB-1s aren't too bad, they deviate by +/-2.5dB throughout the same passband. The CSB-1s play a few hz lower. The CSB-1s seemed like they were on the verge of bottoming out during the sweeps(I heard some mechanical noise, but I didn't get any pop or smack).
Being able to hear things and then test them was a real treat. I wish I could go back in time and measure all of the speakers I auditioned. When I upgrade in the future I may try out something with a ribbon tweeter, I haven't had the opportunity to do any critical listening with ribbon tweeter speakers.
Something I think is important to note is that the CSB-1s gave me hell when trying to get them to where I really wanted them to be. I took about 5 days of moving things around inch by inch while spending about 40 hours total in REW doing sweeps and real time analysis. Granted, most of that was me learning how to do all of that stuff in REW. I feel like the upper midrange/treble of the RC-10s, while not as detailed, are easier to get good results with. That might stem from the fact that the RC-10s have a flatter midrange/treble. Also its important to note that I am not running the CSB-1s flat, like all of my speakers I prefer to apply a house curve(+1.8dB/octave starting at 200hz and -1.4dB/octave starting at 2,000hz). While I was messing around with the house curve on the CSB-1s I thought about the CBM-170's. I feel like I might have been able to get them where I wanted using all this new tech I have acquired. They were really missing that lower midrange and I feel like a house curve might be all they needed. Flat frequency responses tend to not sound so good to most people(see Harmon, B&K study etc), any that might have been the issue. They were too flat, something that I could easily fix now that I couldn't do then. Alas, I will never know.
So after 2 months, 5 speakers and about 40 hours buried in software - I am content.
Note: After analyzing the CSB-1s with all my new gadgets I decided to go ahead and put them on stands behind the desk as some previously suggested before. In the end it was not so much that they measured better from there; the difference was slight, I did it more for the vast improvement in sound-stage.
