Critical oppositions made using inadequate equipment.

@mijostyn.

Well, I am talking about acoustic live music. Electrified concerts are frequently terrible sounding… you are listening to an audio system in a location of terrible acoustics. I stopped going to concerts like that twenty years ago. Live music needs to be classical or acoustical jazz or your more likely to do better at home.

@tomwh

" The biggest issue I see with the out spoken people is there lack of experience with live real music. They always fall back on detail and pump up highs. They use the terms air around instrument , black background, neutral, sound stage, etc etc ... In all the posts did anyone ask you what your goal is. What are you looking for. What is your musical background.? What music do you listen to? Etc."

Tom, I really have to agree with you on this. I spent a lot of time during the decades of improving my system in getting more and better details, slam, nuances of transient, etc, while the overall gestalt of the music suffered. It is easy to let the analytical side take over and look at one variable at a time and loose the big picture. It was season tickets to the symphony ten years ago that brought me back down to earth and while my system has all the details and nuances of former systems they are not lite up as if in a spotlight, they are part of a more musical whole. But I think often you just have to chase the obvious before you can figure out how to find what you really want.