Downside to "revealing" system?

Having owned many esls, I would suggest looking at the crossover network and any other signal processing. You may find that there are very low quality capacitors in the signal path (yes, I do mean in speakers costing many thousands), and changing those can take away the unlistenable glare.

I have done this with great success. Any good tech should be able to help you here - don't try it yourself though, because esls can KILL YOU in several ways.

I suggest film and foil caps with polypropylene or styrene dielectric - stay away from teflon, as it too can sound analytical. Or, an active crossover and four channels of amplification. Good luck!

We’ve got a somewhat similar system Joey, I’ve a Luxman 507UX integrated, a VPI Classic 2 turntable with an Ortofon 2M Black cartidge, and Magico A3’ speakers which are quite revealing.


After reading your post, I’m listening right now to some earlier Warner/Reprise Neil Young albums purchased when first released. "Cowgirl in the Sand" off Everyone Knows this is Nowhere and "Cortez the Killer" off Zuma are first up. "Cowgirl" is harsh in the upper frequencies so I can see what you’re saying there. The lower frequencies are not lacking. I played with the treble control as Erik suggested and that seemed to lessen, but not fully correct, the harshness. "Cortez the Killer" was fine, kind of an average recording, but not unlistenable at all.

I’ve lots of Joni Mitchell vinyl records and none of them seem flat sounding or lacking in any way except for one odd German pressing, I can’t recall which. On the contrary, most of her recordings, both vinyl and
CD, seem to be especially well done.

Now there are some real dogs out there that fit your description, like the original Layla and the Stones’ Let It Bleed pressings, which need to be replaced if you love them as any right thinking person should. But the Neil Young’s are definitely not nearly as bad as those two tragically truly un-listenable albums . Maybe your Luxman 509 is that much better at helping reveal things the 507UX masks. It would be interesting if you could borrow CD versions of your Neil Young’s and see if you hear much difference in how they sound. Or take your Neil Young records to a friends to hear them on another system.

Mike

Those '70's Reprise recordings I'm guessing you are referencing (NY, Joni, Randy Newman) are sounding pretty decent on my quite revealing system.  Sure, there not the very, very best, but they are absorbing and completely musical.  Something is amiss, it seems to me, and would benefit from sorting out.

We are prisoners of the recording engineers . Digital from a certain level is more consistent then analog . I to listen more atently to my digital player and get more involved musically speaking . 
I could be that my analog setup is not up to the challenge . Project 1expression 2 highly modified with Ortofon cartridge modified by soundsound vs Opera Audio Turandot CD Player . 

Which Cardas cables ?
I found that most Cardas cables are Great in most every aspect ,except the upper mids. From my experience some Cardas cables have a slight glare in the upper mids to lower highs area . They have an slightly elevated output in the upper mid to lower high freq range, especially depending how they match up with your equipment.
I am not saying that the Cardas that you are using does, but they just might. .
It is just something to consider