"more forgiving speakers"

What would you rather have, a system that only sounds great on great recordings (referring here to the sound, not the musical performance) and makes a normal recording unlistenable, or a system that might not reveal the Nth degree of realism on the best recordings, but makes normal recordings sound listenable? If you are familiar with live, unamplified music, you will notice that most audiophile type speaker are skewed towards the high frequencies. This incorrect tonal balance is sometimes mistaken for greater transparency or detail.

Regarding live vs. home reproduction of high frequencies, there is an issue regarding microphone placement. In a music hall the listener is sitting anywhere from 25 to more than 100 feet from the musicians, whereas in recordings, typically the microphone can be as little as inches away from the performer. Obviously, the frequency spectrum of the music will differ for each perspective. If you have a system that accurately reproduces the input signal, then close miked performances, all other variables held constant, will sound somewhat bright. Ultimately, I have resorted to using an equalizer as tone controls to modify certain records to what I consider acceptable sonics. Typically I'm cutting or boosting less than 2dB in the 8-12KHz area.