Rubbish! Brightness is first and foremost a function of the engineering of the recording.Brightness and harshness are IMPRESSIONS.... They come from the recording yes sometimes....And this is what i wrote: " Files or cd VARY in relative brightness"...
Please try to read a post before trashing it....
Anyway bright recording are unlistenable on some BAD system, way less so on a good balanced one.....That was my point...But you can take a bad audio too warm system and listen with it too bright files for sure, but 2 bad dont do a good one....
And your "first and foremost" forget the way many bad audio systems, already bright and harsh by themselves, worsen the situation with a bright recording...There exist way more unbalanced bright audio system than too much bright files or cd in a collection....I own 10,000 files and cd by the way....
Then your suggestion is wrong because these IMPRESSIONS of brightness may come from one or another or the 2, the recording and the audio system....But a balanced audio system make anything more listenable and that was my point....
Rubbish yourself then....
:)
«Logic is a two way sword, dont cut yourself with the sword» -Groucho Marx