Was reminded of this thread today:
I was at my friend's place listening to a super expensive system - big Estelon speakers, giant Hegel solid state amps and preamps etc. As he has a very nice turntable I brought some records I know well. The system was "super resolving" in terms of recorded detail, tight image focus, palpable presence of instruments and vocals. But to my brain it all sounded "the wrong tonal color." Basically, all versions of gray. So acoustic guitars on Gordon Lightfoot tracks which on my system evoke in my brain a 'golden sparkly warm woody tone' - much as my own acoustic guitar does - sounded...well..sort of tonally black and white. In terms of comparing to real life, this means that I can close my eyes on my system and somewhat sink in to the illusion of hearing something like the real thing in timbral terms. On that system, as vivid as it was, I could never gain that same experience.
Nothing at all scientific about that, just a report of subjective experience (as the experience evoked in each of our minds in front of different sound systems will of course be subjective).