Most forgiving high end speaker 10k-20k?

Detail can't happen without accuracy.

Accuracy can be pretty or ugly.

An accurate image of a pretty girl is pretty.

An accurate image of Medusa ain't so pretty.

What happens to the pretty girl if you apply the same tweaks necessary to make Medusa presentable?

So clearly accuracy and detail is desirable but still can be a double edged sword. Recordings are what they are. They typically range from mostly good to not so good, but few worth listening to are the audio Medusa, ie few have no sonic merit at all.

There is an up and down side to almost everything.

Don't have the experience to comment on all (or even most) of the suggestions – but I did in fact seek to answer that very question myself, and ended up with the Verity Parsifals. Lesser recordings sound great. Exquisite recordings sound exquisite. But, certainly and overlooking upstream electronics for the moment, room interaction is likely the single most important factor regarding how any given speaker will sound at any given moment. So, considering speakers in the abstract – apart from the "ecosystem" in which they will be asked to perform – is likely not capturing much of what is material to the question.

Just as an example, my listening space is pretty confined, has a nasty (and unfortunately untreatable) first reflection point on one speaker, but an open room on the other (so pronounced asymmetry), and a limited ability to pull them too far off of the front wall. Thus, the Parsifals "fit" in my space better than many: adjustable front- or rear-firing bass modules gives fantastic flexibility and the heavily-loaded midrange driver (providing the lush and wonderful midrange for which they are known) is wired to roll off naturally without imposed crossover points resulting in a relatively "beamy" presentation. That is, the dispersion pattern coming off the midrange is relatively narrow. This may be a huge disadvantage in some spaces, but where first order reflection points are a real issue, it is very helpful. Finally, they're real small. As much as I'd love to play with the likes of Avalon, Maggies, Wisdoms, etc., just plain don’t have the real estate. Thus, even before hearing them, their design rendered them an almost-ideal prospective “fit” for my space.

In sum, I wouldn’t purport to have The Answer – and there likely isn’t one – but there are certainly many factors to consider. I’ve settled on my answer, but certainly not one size fits all.

I have found that, in general, I prefer speakers with soft dome tweeters. To my ears, when they are properly fed, I am less likely to be bothered by them and can enjoy lesser quality recordings vs. other tweeter types. That and a good supported bottom end also contributes to less fatigue for me. This is probably why I prefer the sound of Eggleston speakers. Are they the most revealing? No. But to my ears they are very musically engaging and highly satisfying.

I don't know what went wrong with the Daedalus speakers I heard. I was very surprised to hear tehm sound that way, and disappointed that the search would have ot continue. I do remember that they did not have the crossover upgrade to the capacitors (the owner was going to have that done). Who knows - bad cable match?
I second Rockadanny's Eggleston recdommendation. I heard them briefly at CES, and found them to be fairly resolving and very non-fatiguing. I considered them as an alternative to Ascendo, but never got around to doing a comparison in home.

If a loudspeaker makes mediocre recordings sound good, then something is either wrong with the loudspeaker or the components it is matched with. If you find that some high resolution speakers sound worse than might be expected on mediocre recordings, odds are that the speaker either doesn't have well-matched drivers, or that the crossovers are not optimal for the selected drivers.

You should always want to hear the "truth" out of any loudspeaker. Any loudspeaker that editorializes some sounds is a poorly made piece of kit.

If you have a well-made speaker that you have heard at a dealership that sounded great there but not at your house, chances are the sound problems are in your upstream components. Never try to ameliorate the soundscape through buying speakers that editorialize. You can do that with components (such as tubes vs. solid state), or even interconnects and other wires.

In the $10K - $20K speaker range I would have to opt for the Coincident Technology Total Victory V (MSRP $14,999). It is a high sensitivity speaker (95 db, which allows you to use any number of excellent low-powered tube units, such as the Coincident Technology Frankenstein at 8 watts Class A/channel (MSRP $5,999/pr). The Coincidental Technology Line Stage (MSRP $5,999)is also the best I've heard under $10,000 and is actually better than almost anything even further up the food chain.