TONE

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.
     

@bjesien , yes, we agree, completely...the Von Schweikerts were highly regarded when I bought them in the late 1990s, and I have enjoyed them for many years; however, as I have not pursued listening to more modern designs, they remain the source of my "tonal" questions....the thought of replacing them with something "better" remains challenging to me, as I no longer have boxes. So selling them, at any price, would be difficult, and I cant imagine throwing them away.......for that reason, alone, I have avoided auditioning current loudspeakers...the VR4.5 have a nice, smooth, full frequency sound, nice soundstage and biwired, all important to me....something better, these days, will be "5-figures", I imagine......

I doubt there is any way to 'reproduce', say, the sound of a violin in a concert hall on a stereo system in your living room.  Even listening to your system against a violinist in the room doesn't do much, because that's not the sound you want.  If you had an opera singer in your living room, you'd probably blow your ear-drums out.   Even if you could 'exactly reproduce' the sound of a violinist in a concert hall in your system, you would only be working with the way it sounds from one particular seat in one particular concert hall.  (Maybe in the future we can fine-tune our stream:  Heifetz, Beethoven VC, Carnegie Hall [1940s version], mezzanine row G seat 112.  But until then, we're stuck with great sounding smoke and mirrors.)