As I work to develop my audio system I wonder if the goal of extreme detail retrieval will sacrifice musicality.IMO this is the wrong way to pursue satisfactory reproduction of music.
You must start by focusing on what you believe YOUR sonic ideal would be. One way of doing this is through emotional involvement -- take note of those rare occasions when the SOUND of a system moves you, not the music (music can move you regardless of where it's played). Take note of the characteristics of that sound.
Generally, there are two broad channels of pursuit in audio: 1) true to the original, the latter being the medium.
2) Tailor the sound to one's preferences.
If personal advice is seeked, I would say that musical coherency (i.e. the sound makes musical sense) -- which is my goal, is difficult to achieve by pursuing ultimate "transparency" alone. This is because what is called "low level detail" should be exactly that: low-level, i.e. there but often hardly perceptible.
Your ultimate goal could be, to have the kind of reproduction where you no longer think of, or seek, any more "detail". There are many reasons for this, mostly mechanic rather than broad... but one common misconception is to equate detail with "sound for oscilloscopes" i.e. pronounced upper mids and mids with a super tweet thrown in to soften the presentation.
Finally, as Raul notes above, you cannot go beyond the original -- i.e. how much detail is in the original anyway. But the sound can still have emotive qualities with most media.
