So, is it Clarity or Brightness?

*Is it possible to have incredible clarity while still retaining some of the smoothness? *

Yes.

*When does clarity cross the line to brightness?*
When you screw up putting a system together. :-D
Many trial and error and a balancing act. I appreciate greater resolution and clarity but a high resolution system does not have to sound bright. That's some distortion and dynamic compresion you are hearing.
Even the not so pristine discs do not have to sound head inducing and you can still get a plenty of insights in the right system.

*If the recipe, ingredients and technique are high quality, how could the soup turn out less than stellar?*

Personal sonic bias and everyone hears differently assuming all the *ingredients* are working properly together from electrical pov.

It's possible to achieve anything when you match everything right. In fact, it is our goal in system building. You really need to know how each component sound (including cables to tubes.) Everything matches by ear and not by class-A.

To me clarity is when you can hear the intrument, clearly,
you can tell the position of the musician,Brightness
ussually , cause by ringing of most hears,unnatural,strings
especially or acoustic are the first one I will notice.
Brightness is very fatiguing,clarity make you wanna listen
more.IMHO

Hello Rwbadley, True resolution will always let you you hear more venue information, you will hear more of the space within the space. It will also increase the texture density of the instruments making their images sound more "real" and lifelike. You will hear more of the tone within the tone, the harmonics that make that tone vibriant and so full of life. When you experience it you'll know. For me it's "magic". Don't be fooled by the false detail of a hot treble or forward midrange. As Jayctoy said it will become fatiguing and the character of the coloration will be apparent with all of your recordings. All the best! Tom

Thanks all for your input. I haven't done nearly the amount of experimentation that you all have with the systems. It's good to hear some ideas and descriptors used.

RW