I don't know Don about the wrong question bit...I've had three glasses of wine so I may ramble a bit here. Different voices are useful in different types of music, that's partly why there are so many different names for sopranos. I have what I, and others, call a sweet soprano voice, its clear and often pure, sometimes it can sound shrill, it doesn't have a lot of vibrato, its a good choir voice, but its not strong enough to carry over orchestras. I have a clear memory of a drunken acquaintance saying "Its a nice voice but you've got to get raunchy." It limits somewhat the material that I can sing; but its also fun to take a raunchy bar song and sing it in a sweet soprano, can be a little sarcastic ofr ironic. As I get older my voice is developing its richness. Voices are often best when the singers are in their 30s and 40s. The advantage with trained voices is that they will, generally, last longer.

What people think of as a good voice will depend on what they grew up listening to. I'm not a fan of vibrato but some people love it. At a choir festival years ago there seemed almost a national character to how choirs sounded; what attributes they most enjoyed in a choir. The French tended to be more nasal, the English were sweet and ethereal, the eastern europeans were dramatic and strong, the Americans were brassier.

I personally prefer singers who have clearly thought a lot about their singing and invested the same amount of time learning to sing as they would learning any other instrument. Staying on pitch is good, but some people can sound effective being a little off the pitch, there's a roughness to it than can work well in some songs. I like hearing a voice that moves easily between the lower and higher notes of its range. I notice when I'm trying to learn a song off a tape or CD that if its high in the singer's range and they are straining at the top notes I will also strain even if the key is technically one I should be able to sing in easily, I mimic the strain, not just the note. Therefore I like voices that are comfortable in the range of the song they are singing.

Voices have colour to them and warmth, tenors can be sweet and light, floating on the note, but they can also be very warm and strong, or sound a little anguished and strangulated. People prefer different colours. There's a woman in our song circle who has what I call a smoky alto voice. Its strong and very effective and expressive; its completely different from mine. We sometimes like singing the same songs but the audience will never experience them the same way because we are different people with different voices and approaches. I think that over the last three years we have learned from listening to each other, I've experimented more in the lower part of my range and she's gained confidence in her upper range. We're both better for the learning.

I think most good singers are driven by a desire to sing and express themselves through song. Thus they tend to develop whatever voice they are born with to as a high a degree as they wish. Those with small ranges develop full expression within them and those with larger ranges ripple up and down them. Those with weaker voices exploit their dynamic range to full advantage and those with power belt it out and stun the birds in the trees. They can all sound good.