Is revealing always good?

Revealing systems have teh most up side.

But they reveal noise and distortion as well as the source material. Do what you can to minimize noise and distortion and only then can one judge the merit of a highly revealing system

Active Pre-amps do three things in my estimation

1) control volume
2) Provide inputs and outputs
3) make sources sound a particular way

The first two are required if not provided elsewhere. The third is optional but I find to be most useful when multiple different sounding sources are used in order to bring more uniformity to the sound overall. Whether one likes that sound or not is mostly a subjective judgement I think. I can understand where one might deem most to not add any value in the third regard if bases are covered already otherwise.

Its always good to be revealing. What actually gets revealed may not always be to ones liking.

I'm with Maplegrovemusic 100% on this. :^)

"01-28-15: Dopogue
Since I've never experienced your "too revealing" problem and have had a ton of CD/SACD players -- from $60 Toshibas to my current $3600 Oppo/Modwright -- I have to believe the problem lies elsewhere in your system. Without knowing the components of your system, though, it's impossible even to generalize.

One thing sure, IMO: It is NOT "just the nature of the recordings."

People love to blame the recordings. I used to as well. Its fair enough. People like what they like and vice versa. But my experience has been that if you have reached that conclusion you need to take a step back and look at the things you have control over more thoroughly. The recordings are what they are. Its your system and expectations that you can control. Do that and any music lover should have no problem enjoying most of the recordings that they care about.

"With these CDs the revealing player sounds biting, harsh and "lets through everything."

From my recent experience, if this happens regularly with many recordings, there is a good chance it is noise and distortion sneaking into your system somewhere upstream that is the problem, not each individual CD. Are you using any power conditioning? I've found both power conditioners and power cords like Pangea 14 series to be effective as designed to reduce noise and distortion that contributes to a subtle edge in the music. Those are good investments that need not cost a lot. Try that first maybe before changing anything else.

"Conversely, hard rock/metal music sounds really bad on an excellent CD player- I live w/ this. "

I find hard rock/metal sounds similar on my system to what I hear live in different venues. That for all kinds of music is what I strive for with my home setup. The room end up being the biggest bottleneck in that it is hard to reproduce the sound of a large venue in a smaller room. Other than that, no complaints.

Also, if a better player does not make anything sound better, can it really be a "better player"? Does not make any sense.

Lowering the noise and distortion is the key. That would be inherent in a better player, but alone does not assure success in that noise and distortion can come from many sources and the best gear is not necessarily immune. If you get a handle on noise and distortion, anything will sound the best it can. Of course some recordings include noise and distortion, by design or by oversight as well. A better player will reveal everything and allow one to determine what belongs and what does not.

Not if its revealing noise and/or distortion.

Otherwise yes. It's hard to argue that a cleaner signal is bad somehow.

Recordings are works of art that should be reproduced as accurately as possible fbofw.

Those old paintings by Michelangelo are showing their age. Someone should do something about that. 😏