Best Loudspeakers for Rich Timbre?

@fleschler , I wouldn’t worry. Until we get a sound indistinguishable from reality or at least one that listeners cannot identify as a recording, it’s always going to be a matter of choosing the compromises you can best live with. Our imaginations can always try and do the rest.

Your comments regarding best seating in the concert hall also apply to the cinema albeit to a lesser extent. Except that it’s usually the case of finding the least worst seats - usually in the middle of the middle rows. I’ve almost given up watching superhero films there unless I’m looking for a low level headache. Far more enjoyable at home, just need a bigger television. It’s funny looking back how we used watch on 21" screens.

@prof yes this pleasing ’bathroom’ effect can obviously add tonal richness. It’s never seemed to matter to the music industry whether it’s seen as accurate or not. In order to make vocals sound fuller
they tend to use compression and effects (eg double tracking, delay etc) rather than employ sympathetic room reverb. So I guess they, in their own way, are trying to make the sound more interesting. No one is seriously trying to make the vocals sound thinner and weaker.

It’s this pleasing warmth/ timbre that is being sought.

@prof Yes, I'm aware that I'm in a minority, though from alone.  Devore's tend a little more to the "modern sound" that is shared by most recently designed speakers in the 5K and up range.  I don't want to use the adjective bright, but they are doing something in the treble range that speakers with an "older sound"--e.g. Audio Note, the original Spendor S100's--don't do.  To each his own, obviously, but people should be aware.

twoleftears,

It makes total sense to point out the liabilities of any design choice, of course.   The proof is always how a designer manages those liabilities and to what degree the listener perceives the pluses and minuses of the results. 

In terms of naturalness of timbre, the AN's hit it out of the park for me.  But then, they do need to be close to a front wall, and ideally close to a corner, for maximum bass reinforcement.  Judging by the number of photos I see of conventional speakers jammed up against walls, this should be an advantage for a large constituency.  On the other hand, I really like the sense of depth, air, perspective, from speakers positioned reasonably well away from boundaries, and despite AN's and the dealer's protestations to the contrary, I didn't feel the AN's had as much air as quality conventional speakers optimally positioned.

Just to get a few comments on this......What would you call:  the ability of a speaker to reproduce the image of ....let's say....the almost separate particles of sound, laid side by side in tight succession..... as in a bow on a bass fiddle's low string.....as opposed to a plucked electric bass string.  Is this 'texture', 'timbre' or 'resonance' or something else?  Hope my explanation above made sense.