We have a couple of CDs:

"Tone Poems, David Grisman and Tony Rice, Acoustic Disk"
"Tone Poems II, David Grisman & Martin Taylor, Acoustic Disc"

Highly recommended.

On these, a couple of players play many different instruments. Good documentation and descriptions of the instruments in fairly large "booklet inserts" that accompany the CDs, and you can definitely hear the differences between instruments, when the same very capable players change to a different one.

The instruments are all "classic great" ones, so as expected they all sound good - but differently. I haven't gone into any "critical listening mode" analysis of whether - or how - the instrument "changes the player;" but this is appropriate source material if someone wants to do the analysis.

The "Tone Poets" description sounds like "the rest of the story," or maybe "the other side of the argument." If it's anything like the "Poems" CDs, it should be good listening as well.

John