When you finally hear a good direct-to-disk LP, you realize how mediocre most recorded music sounds. But there are almost no direct-to-disk LP’s which contain music you actually want to hear more than once, let alone love.
Finding gear which gives you what is most important to you in music, yet isn’t so "ruthless-revealing" that you become "too aware" of the limited quality of the sound of the music as heard through your system, is a long journey. One of learning what compromises you are willing to make, what you are willing to sacrifice for "the greater good."
Then there are the recordings which sound SO bad that the sound actually makes not just listening to the music, but being able to appreciate it, impossible. There's nothing you can do about THAT.