[Intermernet]

NS10s are so popular because they're so non-complimentary. Yamaha (and I've read conflicting accounts) either deliberately created a speaker that was so non-flattering to any audio, or accidentally released a product that became a studio mix engineer hit for the same reasons.

I've heard producers and studio engineers say that if something sounds good on NS10s, it'll sound good on anything.

This is the same reason professional mastering engineers will sometimes insist on listening to mixes on average car stereos, ipod headphones, and cheap consumer audio systems. It doesn't matter how good it sounds on your $100,000 studio system if it sounds terrible to 99% of the population.