If a " system " cannot do this, I move on........

I wouldn;t say Adele recordings are any good at all. If you think they sound good, well ... it stopped me readung the rest of your post

Great post.

Horns plus tubes equals bliss (to me). Once I heard this combination I knew I was done looking for a system that works with the music I like. 

Some people are audiophiles because of the cool gear. Some people are audiophiles because of the music. I think some people are listening to the gear and not the music. Listen with your ears and not an oscilloscope.  

Hey, this isn't that complicated.  If you like horn speakers, that just means you like what they do to the music.  I would note that almost no one who listens to music critically for commercial purposes does so on horn speakers. But you do, and are listening for enjoyment, so good for you.  They help make the music come alive for you, and that's all that really matters.  

My main point, however, is this:  Don't fool yourself,  Whether you are listening to Adele or to any other pop artist, you are always listening to music that has been processed, and bears no relationship to a "room".  All pop music is tracked, using multiple takes, and is uniformly EQ'd and compressed, with reverb or delay, and usually with some amount of tweaking of pitch or editing of individual notes and sound waves.  Whatever you think you are hearing is there because a sound engineer put it there.  The good news is that the emotions of the music and the talent of the performer still shine through.  So, enjoy what you hear, just know what you are really hearing.

Hence the term"Recording Artists"

Recording art

Hey everyone. I appreciate everyone’s comments, positive and negative, as well as my return to Agon, posting. As we all know, anyone on this site, is surely adimant about certain things related to this hobby. I do not judge the preference that folks have ( there was a time I did, when I consulted in helping people build a better system suited to their " tastes " ). Are horns up front and in your face ? Not in my room. They do have a dispersion characteristic that minimises side room bounderay reflections, at least with me and my system. Their dynamics brings out much that is lost due to the recordings ( again the staple of our hobby ), and I appreciate that, especially coming from my live musical background, so shoot me for that. Adele not being talented ? Really ? You might not like her music, but come on people. I also love Sarah Vaughn, Billie Holiday, Barbara Steisand, Krall, Barber, and hundreds of others, so shoot me, again. If someone is using mini monitors, and they feel they are getting the most out of their music listening....I am thrilled for them. The entire point of this hobby, and my post, is getting to that point of enjoying our music, without ever thinking about what is missing from the experience, as so many do, leading to the upgrade bug. On another thread a while back, I had mentioned the recordings by the genius of Tony Minasian of Tonian Labs, stating that if all recordings sounded this way, we would not need to spend a fortune on gear to compensate for what is not there ( the Sheffield mention was a good point of a great recording ). But, I cannot only listen to SOTA recordings, because my listening pallette would be empty of so much enjoyment. I never said Adele’s recording are great....but I do feel her voice and vocal talents are. Are some people not understanding that it is the " talent " of our favorite musicians, that makes this hobby what it is. A band I have loved forever is Jethro Tull. Recordings are poor, but the MUSIC is wonderful, exciting, a joy for me to listen to. I know many people who could not listen to this band on their systems, because technically, the engineering is not up to snuff. That is their loss, imo. There are many posters on this thread that get what I am saying, but a few are still lost, based on my understanding of their words. So again, Enjoy, and be well. Until my next post....Always, MrD.