If the vocals are too bright or sharp, if snares or unpleasant sounding instrumentals ruin an otherwise good song, it’s usually because the system is too accurate.
I call BS on that. This is the a problem with listeners that are measurement driven. An accurate system neither adds nor detracts from the recording. A system can be a lot of things but never too accurate.
Go to the music store and rent a snare drum, bring it to your listening space and tap it. Accurate is the reproduction of that sound. If your "so called accurate" system snare doesn’t sound exactly like the snare you rented then it’s not really accurate is it?
A system should be musical, it should be intimate. Those vocals, solo, harmonies should draw you in, embrace you, make you actually feel the sadness or joy or despair the musician is trying to impart on you.
How do you get there? Just simply listen. That’s all it takes, listening. When you change something it’s either more or less. It isn’t a percentage better, how could it be? It can be better at one thing at the cost of something else but music is as music does.
So high-end audio is about chasing an ideal that doesn’t exist in reality - but in the minds of audiophiles
You said you don’t mind being called wrong but that is absolutely, unequivocally wrong