Regarding compression: A first cellist from the SF Ballet bought a pair of speakers from me (10" 3-ways I built). We visited the ballet several times thereafter.
One Christmas season the CEO & I saw The Nutcracker. We sat way up in the balcony, several rows back. We had good vision of the ballet dancers but the orchestra was mostly hidden. The sound of the triangle was exceptionally memorable. It was as if it was several feet away even though it may have been 100+. The triangle's absolute crystaline clarity, the uncompressed leading edge transients followed by its peak loudness, reverberation & final decay are etched in my mind. It was all that & more, though it blended perfectly with the music & never drew attention to itself. It made me happy. I thought, oh how soothing & healing live music is compared to reproduced.
One particular recording, Christopher Donanyi's version (my favorite) of Beethoven's 9th Symphony, has great triangle effects in the 4th movement when reproduced well.
The closest I've heard recorded treble get to that live triangle is through my buddy's home built (not expensive) 300B SET amp. I have become thoroughly convinced silicone is incapable of reproducing treble as well as a tube filament, but as always YMMV. His amp is in storage & he offered to loan it to me. After I get rid of my huge TV & redo my room, I plan to use it for treble only. His amp gets razor close to that ballet treble effect, way better than second (my current tube amp). His 8W amp clipped powering an 88 dB mid-treble array, but should be fine powering a 96 dB tweeter only.
