Most forgiving high end speaker 10k-20k?

Larry i certainly gave some well thought out choices. As a former owner of Parsifal Encore's, I can certainly agree with the Parsifal recommendations. Even though forgiving, the P/E's do allow the character of upstream components to be revealed. In my system, they sounded very good w/ an Accuphase amp, and even better with tubes. They DO need some power to come alive though. Another speaker, well below your price range, is the Eggleston Andra 1. The Andra's need big power though. If it were me, I would re-read Larry i's comments on the Audio Notes. I think his comments about going w/low power tubes, may be in line with what you are looking to achieve. That said, I would also consider the DeVore 0/96's...! I am running them quite happily, with 25 watts.

No speaker, including highly detailed ones, presents the music exactly as it was recorded on the disc or lp. In fact there is no one sound that represents what the grooves or digits represent. Every stereo system, including the mixing engineer's, gives its own interpretation of what's on the disc or lp. Our ears and brains all hear differently too.

There are tradeoffs in every speaker design. Some speakers provide lots of detail but may sound thin or bright, timbres may not be natural, or they may not communicate emotion very well.

Really the only way to tell if a speaker is right for you is to put it in your system and listen to it for a while. I wish it was easier but it's not.

It's not a question of speakers making mediocre recordings sound good, as much as making mediocre recordings sound their best. There is a lot of equipment that makes mediocre recordigns sound worse by compounding the problems, while making good recordings sound artificially more detailed than they really are by boosting highs and cutting lows. This gear will ultimately become unbearable on the good recordings too when the thrill of false detail wears off.

Most people don't know what the TRUTH sounds like in a recording because they weren't there when it was recorded and played back in the studio. Some believe that if your ears don't bleed while playing a mediocre recording then you are not hearing the truth, but simply masking its warts. While there is some truth to this it is not completely accurate. I have heard some expensive speakers which sound highly resolving, but only because they don't seem to properly reproduce all of the complex harmonic structure in the recording, and thus sound thin, giving a false impression that they are more accurate. At some point during my speaker search I realized that NO speaker completely tells the truth. Every speaker and component in your system lies at some level. Once I accepted that fact I stopped chasing the "most accurate" speaker and changed to the speaker which gave me the "most satisfaction". Granted, that turned out to be a fairly well resolving speaker, but one which is also able to not drive me out of the room on lesser quality recordings. I suspect that you too can find a well resolving speaker which can also play mediocre material, but the sad truth is (IME) you must compromise somewhere between the two. Hopefully you can satisfy both types of recordings, squeezing out enough resolution with well recorded material, yet still achieve at least acceptable playback with lesser recordings.

If you did get the worlds most forgiving speakers they would probably put you right to sleep.

I have been in love with the Wilson Benesch Curves for about 8 years now. They do everything you are asking about. Extraordinary on good and great source material.
Wilson Benesch has a new speaker out called the Vectors that I recently added to my show room floor. Amazing.

Check them out.

The best
Jim