Accuracy vs. Enjoyment

Yeah, this includes as little distortion as possible. It's amazing, provided you have a decent equipment, how much you can achieve with good cables.

Depends on what % of overly etched recordings are in your collection and in rotation.  If your system is ruthlessly accurate and lots of your discs sound bad, where's the enjoyment in that?

Has nobody ever thought of getting the most ruthlessly accurate system you can and tailoring the good and bad recordings by software. I happen to have a lot of money in my home built PC and it is chock full of anti jitter software and I have Sony Sound Forge and Magix Sequoia installed. When I come across a lousy CD no worries as all I do is tailor it to my system , if I want to tame the high frequencies or add bass to a dry recording then all it takes is a short time in my progams and it sounds great my ears and I mean only my ears because I am the one who purchased the disc and I am the one who is going to listen to it. Now we all know what one person mixes on a recording does not suit every one so this is my solution and I can then if I am happy with them store them on de-fractionalised solid state hard drives and if I want I then store the good CDs and sell on the duffers. And the software if it's good enough for the BBC it is certainly good enough for me  and I happen to think that the BBC can mix superb recordings You should hear their Proms through my Stax and Sennheiser phones, it can be trully awesome at the right levels.

I do you guys determine accuracy?
Alan

Hmmmm, so I make my own loudspeakers so therefore can measure them fairly well in terms of frequency response and distortion. They are objectively pretty close to neutral, with no sweetening peaks and valleys that are often the darlings of high end reviewers. 

HOWEVER ! :) 

That has pluses and minuses. Plus: Plays all music and movies reasonably well. My god do they play movies well! 

Minus: Does not thrill you with enhanced vocals, or rock n roll rhythms. 

Also requires a certain amount of volume before they sound their best. 

So, as before, I think tone controls should be used more. 

Best,

E