As someone that works a lot with both Pantone and RAL, I've never understood the value proposition of the these digital color palettes - the fact of the matter is, they're just not good matches to the physical colors to begin with.
Obviously, a physical product is reflected light, a monitor is emissive light, etc. This means they're never going to be exact no matter how much work you put into it, but... I have a calibrated monitor with measured coverage of over 99% sRGB, a delta E max below 1, a delta E average of .4, calibrated to D65, with a 98 CRI D65 color matching light, and... the colors are way off. At best the hex values they give are decent starting points, but if you are attempting to provide an accurate representation in digital form of what the color is, these were never good enough to begin with.
You need the physical samples (books, plastic chips, whatever), a calibrated monitor, and a good color matching light to really dial the colors in to be close. These libraries were never worth it to begin with.
When you go to get something printed/resins and inks mixed for plastic/whatever, they're not matching to these digital values - they match to physical samples. My printer won't produce the same physical product using the same CMYK values as your printer, etc. They get out their pantone book and compare the printed color to what is in the book, and then adjust from there. For anything requiring high color accuracy, anyway.
That's what I always thought, too, that the point of referencing Pantone colors is simply that I know what I'll get from the print shop will match the physical swatch I looked at.
Have you considered Observer Metamerism, your display might have very narrowband primaries for example. Your vision could also be an outlier of the CIE Standard Observers, thus any calibration attempt will not be super effective.
>your display might have very narrowband primaries for example
I am using a professional display that is intended for color-accurate work, and similarly have other very accurate, calibrated, monitors that show the same results.
> Your vision could also be an outlier of the CIE Standard Observers, thus any calibration attempt will not be super effective.
I've scored near perfectly to perfectly on a variety of Farnsworth Munsell 100 Hue (and inspired) tests using the same displays, and I speak frequently with others who also have to do color accurate work while dealing the Pantone and RAL colors. They universally report the same thing.
Fundamentally if these digital values were good enough, we wouldn't need the physical samples to begin with.
Obviously, a physical product is reflected light, a monitor is emissive light, etc. This means they're never going to be exact no matter how much work you put into it, but... I have a calibrated monitor with measured coverage of over 99% sRGB, a delta E max below 1, a delta E average of .4, calibrated to D65, with a 98 CRI D65 color matching light, and... the colors are way off. At best the hex values they give are decent starting points, but if you are attempting to provide an accurate representation in digital form of what the color is, these were never good enough to begin with.
You need the physical samples (books, plastic chips, whatever), a calibrated monitor, and a good color matching light to really dial the colors in to be close. These libraries were never worth it to begin with.
When you go to get something printed/resins and inks mixed for plastic/whatever, they're not matching to these digital values - they match to physical samples. My printer won't produce the same physical product using the same CMYK values as your printer, etc. They get out their pantone book and compare the printed color to what is in the book, and then adjust from there. For anything requiring high color accuracy, anyway.