TONE

@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.)

@jdane Agree 100%. Whether it's a violinist 3 feet in front of me or The Ramones or the Chicago Symphony, everything in our sound space must -- at the very least -- be reduced in size, most of the time. If one has an enormous listening room, well, maybe they can fit a string quartet, but still -- the Mormon Tabernacle Choir? Who'd want them?

This is why I made the comment below about "impressionism" vs. "hyperrealism." It's about what kind of representation you prefer, which is consonant with what MC was saying, too. All that said, we still want oboes to sound like oboes, and so the idea of the system all conspiring to keep us in the same arena as the world of live music is an important reference point -- but it's not a ideal we are trying to simulate, point-for-point, detail-for-detail. Otherwise, well, we get the Ramones trashing our house.

we still want oboes to sound like oboes, and so the idea of the system all conspiring to keep us in the same arena as the world of live music is an important reference point.
@hilde45,
Completely agree with your comment. I don’t believe that most listeners expect a 100% duplication of what’s heard live. I do believe that familiarity with the sounds of various instruments is very helpful in recognizing their individual and unique  tones and timbre. Some reference point is useful. There are no perfect audio components but some do a better job than others in reproducing tone relative to the live instrument template.
Charles .

Yup.  That's one of the main reasons I go to live music--I want to stay familiar with the sound I've trying to get (or allude to!) at home, and am willing to put up with the increasingly boorish behavior of contemporary audiences to do that.