How can a system be judged with highly processed, non acoustic music?

People have no idea generally of the weight of acoustic on audiophile experience....

They listen to their gear, compare it to other, without knowing that no gear has a sound of its own ONLY but must be embedded mechanically, electrically and acoustically especially to shine by itself...

Especially many reviewers are there to sell, not to explain how to create audio experience at no cost...

No acoustician use electronica FIRST AND ONLY to asssess a Hall or a room....Hall or musical room are designed for centuries FIRST for natural human voices and natural non electrified instruments...This is the point about "timbre " perception...

But Who dont want to understand will not.... 😁😊

Too much work to understand anyway....

It takes me 2 years full time listening experiments in my room to figure out acoustic for audio, i will not try to convince someone to do that...

If you had money anyway you will buy ready made passive treatment and think the job is done.... Most of the times the job is not done especially in small audio complex room... It takes me active mechanical control devices to ADAPT the room to the speakers system....Passive treatment was not enough at all here...
Anyway....

My best to all...

Of course it’s possible to judge a system’s sound using highly processed non-acoustic music. The question is not whether it can be judged, but whether one’s goal is to achieve a sound one likes without any aspirations to meeting any particular standard of fidelity; or, whether it is to achieve a sound that gets as close as possible to the sound of acoustic music. It’s not the same for everyone and, yes, no matter what many think it is possible to have acoustic music as a real and very useful standard.

To throw in the towel because timbre is altered by the first microphone is, in a way, a little like saying: “why should I shower at all, I’m just going to get dirty again”. Point is, of course the process of choosing components that, in combination, best mimic the sound of live acoustic instruments is imperfect. Of course that first microphone alters timbre as well as other aspects of the music. However, the goal is to choose pieces and combinations of pieces of rec/playback electronic gear that does the least damage; and some do a much better job than others.

Its become popular to dismiss the use of a sonic standard and there certainly is nothing wrong with simply aiming for what “sounds good” to us for whatever reason. It is obviously a personal thing. However, with enough exposure to the sound of un-processed acoustic music it becomes possible to form an aural “database” of the characteristics of unprocessed musical sounds that let’s one be a better judge…..if that is one’s goal. Ask yourself this question: how is it possible to tell that the friend or loved one on the phone is getting over a cold? Shouldn’t all that “processing” and crude playback device make it impossible to tell; never mind, tell who it is? Familiarity with the sound.

My experience has been that building a system that best reproduces unprocessed acoustic music allows processed music to sound best. However, “best” for me may not be best for someone else. With processed music, “best” for me also includes being able to hear the warts in the recording that were the result, at least in part, by the choices that the engineer/producer made. The fun part is to be able to tell if Phil Woods is playing his Yamaha or his Selmer alto saxophone. There is no professional mic that will do so much damage that it becomes impossible to tell.

Most music today is NOT worth listening to....let alone purchasing. The Days of quality music and recording are long gone. A sad state of affairs, and a reflection of society today really....I long for the good old days, hence why I choose to live in the past in this regard. I have my own time machine....I will temporarily transport myself to wherever, old records are my vehicle....tonight I'm going to Gay Paris....

Martin or Gibson guitar?
Strat or Les Paul?
Normally, an acoustic guitar player does not electronically alter.
But, perhaps an ultimate test is whether or not a piano sounds “right”.

On the first Stereophile Test CD they have a track where JG Holt reads from a Stereophile  and is recorded in mono by about 15 different microphones including Shures, AKGs, Neumans, Telefunkens, etc.  It's not hard to tell when the microphone changes.

So I would say that what you are doing is making your system sound most natural to you.  It may not sound most natural to someone else who uses different minimalist acoustic recordings to determine natural.