What of your CD's have good sonics?

Why should a brutally honest system be automatically aligned with a hyper-detailed system when in fact they are mutually exclusive? Or at least should be. A brutally honest system will reveal far more musical detail including distortions (system shortcomings) than a brutally dishonest system or the more rare hyper detailed system would.

A musical performance consists of exactly 100% detail. Never more and never less. That implies there is no such thing as 101% detail. So aside from the the relatively rare component that is indeed zipped up or hyper detailed, I would think one would want to get as close to 100% of the detail embedded in the recording. The closer you get to the 100% detail the more abundant and natural are the warmth, bloom, harmonics, etc. that you get.

If you are experiencing what seems to be an abundance of poorly engineered recordings that seem flat or lifeless, grungy, overly detailed, or shouty, it's simply because your system is the victim of numerous distortions (which all are to one degree or another).

Any distortion whether electrical or mechanical will cause most all of the finer nuances and detail to smear to the point of dropping off into the noise floor and raise the noise floor so that much of the musicality of a presentation becomes inaudible.

Sadly, the vast majority of the magic or beauty of a performance lies in the low level detail and thus much of the believability of a performance is inaudible and is anything but believable. Thus leaving only a small percentage of the info embedded in the recording audible, (the bulk but not all of the high level detail and just a remnant of the low level detail).

Changing to a speaker or component that seems warmer or fuller most always adds a coloration that has nothing to do with getting closer to the original performance. As is usually the case when trying to cure the effects rather than the cause. In fact, because such products add new colorations to mitigate old colorations or distortions, I would contend that such 'warmer' components actually take you further away from the 100% detail of the live performance rather than closer to it. Even though they might make inferior systems and recordings seem more palatable and less fatiguing.

Especially since such a component would do nothing to recover the volumes of missing or inaudible detail which was the original problem anyway.

In other words, this has nothing to do with listening analytically or critically, or even just immersing yourself in the pleasure of music no matter how distorted it sounds.

As you probably know, there's real pleasure listening to the quality of magic of a given live performance and there is potential for real pleasure in listening to the quality of magic of recordings of same given live performance.

That's assuming of course that the reason you've invested your money in a 'high-end' system and participate in 'high-end' audio forums such as this one is to get closer to achieving that goal rather than seeking insight as to how invoking The Force might help convince yourself indulging in a 'high-end' audio hobby has nothing fundamentally to do with listening to the quality of the sound of the music.

To answer the original question, you should find that the vast majority of all CDs, including Redbook, contain enough music information to create superior musical presentations, even those we might consider to be our most inferior engineered recordings. It's the distortions plaguing our systems that keep us from hearing the vast majority of that information embedded in the recording medium.

-IMO

MrTennis, wow, you're a reviewer now, eh? Congratulations.

As far as I know there are many reasons why people listen to or indulge in music and I would not presume to know why or even really care much what those potentially many reasons may be. If I gave the impression that I know why all or even some people indulge that was not my intention. In fact, it seems that it was Elizabeth who presumed to know at least how if not why people must be listening if they are unhappy with what they hear.

But my primary point with Elizabeth is that when I start seeing am/fm transistor radios in the all-out-assault section of the virtual systems in this or similar forums along with their listing Merle Haggard and Snoop Doggy Dog among their favorite artists, then I might be convinced that the quality of sound and quality of music matters little, at least to those individuals. If this industry were labeled 'low-end' audio then I never would have said a word as Elizabeth's statement would have been right on the money.

Jaxwired, I'm not sure why you say my position is why so many audiophiles don't own any music they actually like. I suggest re-reading my last paragraph in my previous post as that should completely contradict the position you think I took.

Did I not say there that I contend the vast majority of all CD's, including Redbook, contain enough music information to potentially create a superior musical presentations (I contend could even competitively compete with the absolute sound), even many of those we consider to be our most inferior engineered recordings? If per chance my statement is accurate, then that should offer hope and encouragement regardless of the type of music, its age, etc. Please explain.

As for your comments about a laid back treble actually sounding closer to the live performance. I find that interesting. So less is more? So when taken to the extreme no treble is the holy grail? But you appear to be presuming we both share in listening to the same or similar 'neutral' systems, that we share similar definitions and perhaps more.

Obviously your definition of a neutral system is vastly different from my own. You seem to be coming from the position that a neutral system is some type of brutally honest zipped up hyper detailed system and that was one of my points in my previous post.

Most likely you hear perhaps every superior system sounding too detailed, overly aggressive, and/or shouty, almost as though every recording was too closely mic'ed. Sadly, that's what is known by today's standard or state-of-the-art. If this is what you hear, then keep in mind that a supposedly 'brutally honest' and/or neutral system will not only provide more of the music it will also provide more of the distortions because a truly revealing system is indiscriminate about what it reveals.

But did it ever occur to you that maybe it's not called 'brutal honesty' because of what it does for the music, but rather it's because of what it does for the distortions and what the distortions in turn do to the music or presentation?

So if that is your perspective or experience then a warmer speaker might be just what the doctor ordered to keep you from running out of the room. But just because you're no longer running from the room that potential band-aid is certainly no guarantee that you're getting one iota closer to the live performance. Zero volume will produce the same results.

You said most of the so-called neutral high-end systems sound like anything but real. My first question to you is, who ever told you those systems were neutral? Secondly, why did you believe them? The fact that you say they don't sound real should have been enough to convince you that they could not be neutral.

(If per chance you make these statements thinking that the best playback systems are fine as-is and it's the recordings that are all screwed up. If so, you would be in good company. But that is not my contention. In fact, mine is the opposite.)

Nevertheless, my point was that perhaps EVERY last system is seriously plagued with electronic and mechanical distortions and I was simply stating that your suggestion of adding warm speakers was not necessarily the correct way to go. I'll say it again.... Because until the cause of these deleterious distortions are properly diagnosed and remedied, rather than addressing their effects (like perhaps adding a warm speaker to tame an unexplainably cold, harsh, aggressive, and/or lean system), the chances are good to excellent that the so-called warm speaker you're thinking of is just adding a dose of another distortion to counter or balance out a previously unresolved distortion.

But to iterate another point and minimize potentially further confusion, my position is that since EVERY system is plagued with much electrical and mechanical distortion, then it must be an oxymoron to say that ANY such system could be correctly labeled as 'neutral'. At least until these deleterious distortions are properly diagnosed and resolved and I can assure you they have not.

Whereas your position appears to be that despite a system being plagued by such harmful distortions it can still be labeled as 'neutral'.

I obviously disagree but I would like to be clear that we're talking apples and oranges here about experiences, our definitions of a neutral system, as well as other things.

-IMO