Commercially available spectrophotometers are optimized for specific scientific and industrial applications. Because their designs have been constrained by price and performance requirements, most commercial spectrophotometers have insufficient precision to accurately measure the spectral characteristics of high-performance optical filters, especially filters with steep spectral edges and deep blocking, which are Semrock hallmarks. Functional limitations in light sources, detectors, and diffraction gratings, and in their combined performance, can create artifacts in the spectral measurement of such high performance optical filters. A customer's filter spectrum measurement may differ from the measurement performed at Semrock due to the presence of these artifacts. Understanding the origins of such measurement discrepancies enables inference of the filter’s actual performance and provides guidance for decision making.