Just a quick comment that a comparison between musical instruments and stereo equipment is not a valid analogy.

Musical instruments make original music. The instrument builders search for pleasant, distinctive distortions, harmonics, and abnormal frequency response. There is not a broad call for musical instruments that generate perfect sine waves. Steinways and Stradivarius violins are prized for their unique distortions, not their lack thereof.

The goal of musical equipment is quite the opposite. One wants the speakers and the other reproduction equipment to do only that - reproduce what is on the recording without adding anything of its own or leaving anything off. That is quite different from what wants of a musical instrument.