TONE

more music lovers would be happier IMHO if they exercised a bit of tone control courage.

Very few musicians hear the way we think. I was around a lot of them back in the 70’s, classical acoustic instruments mostly. Whole lot of them. They all need a 440 tuning fork to tune properly. Or if not a tuning fork then some other reference like a piano. Point being, they listen just like we do: by comparison.

Only one out of all the probably hundreds I saw had "perfect pitch" the ability to know when she was hearing 440 or whatever. I know she did, because someone pulled out a tuning fork one time and from across the room she called out the frequency and named the note.

Changing the speed on a record does more than change the frequency. Each note from each instrument is accompanied by its own individual harmonic signature or timbral structure. Whatever you want to call it, it is unique to that particular instrument. This structure is harmonic in nature. So when you play something at a different speed it shifts everything up equally. Something that never happens in nature. In the real world when you play a different note, or shift the same note up (sharp) or down (flat) it shifts not only the fundamental frequency but the whole harmonic structure along with it.

See, this idea of "tone" is a lot more complex than we give it credit for. You can’t just turn a tone control up or down, the result will be as artificial as playing the record too fast. This is why it is possible to have a speaker with obvious tonal colorations that might sound better than one without them- if it nevertheless gets the harmonic structure right our ears forgive it. Unless we are the kind of listener for whom one thing overrides the other.

Which is why it is kind of goofy to be asking these questions the way people do. Nobody but you knows how important these things are to you. Are you building your system for some imaginary musician who might by chance drop by some day, in the hope of impressing them? Or are you building it for your own enjoyment, you and your family and friends?

Anyway, you are right to be asking about the system and not doing like most and asking about the speakers. Usually when people think of tone they think of speakers. But put any component (including your speakers) on something like Townshend Pods that eliminates a lot of this tone-distorting harmonic ringing so many components are prone to, and then you will hear how much tone is messed up even by things like a DAC or amp. It is really quite staggering how many things are messed up this way. And yet we still somehow manage to enjoy listening.

bdp -- I gotta tell you that it isn't easy to record a human voice.  Whenever I've played back a human voice I've recorded, it's always come up short when compared to the live voice that was in front of me.  The recording might suffer from midrange honk, bass bloat, too little air, too much air, general deadness, or sibilants that are either too strong or too weak. To be sure, my microphones were never world class (they were always of the good if not outstanding Shure sm58 level), but I have to say that the quality was far worse than what I regularly hear on decent professional recordings, no matter how much manipulation the producers might be guilty of. Oddly, the only recordings of musical instruments I make that sound good to me come from the instrument folks say is the hardest one to reproduce, the acoustic piano. 

the more I think of my original question, I have realized that asking about "tonally accurate" source material wont help my conundrum one bit, as I would still be reproducing it through my system...the ONLY way for me to  understand the "tone" of my system is to learn and accurately remember the sound of live instruments, as I am not inclined to do the home-recording thing(though unless one's recording setup itself was "SOTA", that reference recording would have its own flaws)....so this mental exercise has gotten me back to my usual perspective on audio systems and this hobby, and that is to please the owner/listener with its sound.....

What about tone's brother's attack and decay and his cousins texture and color? Even when it's all correct there's some magic essence that's either there or not there. I was thinking about this in terms of saturation the other day. I have a pair of polarized sunglasses with the purple mirror front face. I love driving with them because they bring beautiful depth in the sky, especially in the early evening. They don't make me drive better- if anything worse because I'm taken aback by "less important" things. They also enhance all the pixels of my iphone in the most curious warm and glowing way. I wouldn't trade my eyes for these, or make a wish to a genie for a permanent change, because there are some drawbacks too. This is why my amp collection in completely warranted and natural.😂

I'd suggest you experiment with sound but only if you enjoy the experiment- it can be frustrating and expensive and tiring at times. It can be a similar pattern that we apply to other areas in life too. From personal experience you will likely be only one to tell the difference or to care, so if you "wonder" it's best to be in a position to a/b gear for a few months so you don't "wander" from your base enjoyment. Nice setup you have. I've never heard the Von Schweikert.