Most forgiving high end speaker 10k-20k?

Making bad recordings sound good may not be all bad. In the case of open baffle speakers it is adding back the ambiance that is missing. Live music is usually listenable even though the artists aren’t great performers. A lot of that enjoyment is from the ambient sound that is missing on most speakers. Including ambiance is a valid approach.

Bob

This discussion has reminded me of how glad I am to have tone controls. (Go ahead, barbecue me!) I listen almost exclusively to classical music, and I seek out recordings for the music and the performance, not so much for the sound. Unfortunately, when you take this approach, you get quite a few poor recordings. My pet peeve is screeching violins. (Please, no system recommendations; good recordings DO sound good.) When things get too bright, I just dial in the tone controls.

It's not an ideal fix, because most treble controls are centered on about 10K Hz, while I believe the actual region of violin brightness is quite a bit lower, probably about 2K to 5K Hz. (That's why I wish they still made presence controls to cut back a little in this region.)

I know folks talk about all the bad things tone controls are supposed to do, but I've never heard them. I think, when needed, they fix far more problems than they might possibly cause.
-Bob

Does it have to say thank you.DUDE!!

First time I heard the Beatle's "I'm Looking Through You" I was stunned by how amazing it was...on a 4" (maybe) single crappy dashboard ('61 Dodge Lancer) car speaker. I've listened to Yamaha NS10s in major recording studios and still think being waterboarded would be preferable to ever hearing those damn things again. I think ancillary gear, the music, and your taste is all that is ever happening, and to sort of paraphrase an old Buddy Rich comment, "there is no bad sound, just bad music." This isn't true, but it certainly made me feel better to write it.

"This discussion has reminded me of how glad I am to have tone controls."

Treason!

I bet you have picture quality controls on your HD TV that muck with the pure natural picture quality that would exist otherwise as well!

Not to mention all kinds of fancy pre-configured settings on your digital camera that make pretty pictures even in low light but muck with the beautiful natural washed out dimness that would be captured otherwise!

:-)