Why not horns?

Unsound ,

You had your s500 modified , Yes?

In the past , I have found the threshold pre-amp combo very sensitive to the cables/CD player output impedance/ cable type combo. Playing around with the cable from the CD player to the FET/10 makes a huge difference in perceived harshness picked up in the upper midrange area.

regards,

The Better any system get's to the truth, is the less you will experience these so called un-listenable tracks...

This has been my experience over the years and Currently I can play any type of recordings or Music, my only concern is popping the 15 amp fuses in the amplifiers on really loud crescendos....

regards,

"The Better any system get's to the truth, is the less you will experience these so called un-listenable tracks... "

I agree. I suspect this may be the most useful metric regarding system quality of all.

I think we might be having a linguistic challenge. I don't consider hardness and harshness to be synonymous. For the record I have not complained about harshness from my system. On rare occasion I detect a bit of hardness. I am confident that this is recording dependent.

The better a system the less likely it will exaggerate problems in the recordings, but, unless one manipulates the recording play back, the flaws won't be hidden either. If the flaws are minimal one can easily overlook them if the balance of the recording satisfies.