Neutral electronics are a farce...

^^^ ... I agree bgp24.  

The proof of what you're saying is when you hear a CD that's been ripped right off of the master tape with no added digital reverb and very little or no EQ. Just a flat recording one step from the original source. When you hear a great CD like that, one can clearly hear how so many of the recording engineers really foul things up. Totally unnecessary too. Amazing. 

I've done a little mixing, some with Yamaha NS-10s.  I think of them as a critical-listening speaker, not a listening-for-pleasure speaker.  I'd be curious to hear from the pros as to whether that's a valid distinction.
I know one thing:  when I'm testing a mix it sounds different on every single system I try.  It's maddening.

I am another believer in recordings are the first thing to blame when sound is not good in a hifi system. And i believe they are 90% good to great in actuality . There is no way in hell big record labeles are putting out crappy sounding records . Can you imagine the producers , studio engineers , execs doing a listening session before release and the sound making their ears bleed from crappy sound . Then they tell the record execs  "don't worry it will it will sound better on a car radio" . nonsense i say 

Auratones…man…and I think the only valid explanation of NS10s is everybody had them, but I have never been able to stand those damn things…they give me a headache. Note that mastering has a huge impact on the final sound…luckily…Bob Ludwig, et al…save the day often.

In a very early Stereophile, Gordon Holt (a good recording engineer himself) showed a graphic equalizer as it was adjusted in a studio during a recording. He then showed the measured frequency response of the monitors in the studio. He pointed out that the equalizer settings were the exact inverse of the frequency response of the speakers---the engineer was using the equalizer to correct the frequency response of the speakers! The problem is, that equalization was applied to the tape, so when the recording was played on a speaker that didn’t require EQ’ing, the recording would sound like that inverse of the monitor speaker. In order to sound right, the recording HAD to be played on that studio monitor loudspeaker, and it alone! In many studios, since each speaker in the monitor booth makes a recording sound different, with no definitive reference to live sound, the engineer will adjust the EQ until the recording sounds about equally "good" (whatever that means to the engineer) on all the monitors. Oy!