Glenn,
My ideal sound gravitates to the common elements that I hear from Mr. Herseth, Charles Schlueter, James Thompson, Phil Smith, Michael Sachs, Charles Vernon, Manny and so many other great players that I have heard live. While recorded sounds are great, they are so 2-dimensional compared to the real thing.
If anyone is interested, I wrote about what I feel are the most important components to discover a
Resonant Sound in my own playing. Modeling great sounds of other players is a very large part of this process.