Passion, or ..... Precision?

All my gear is on a par with regards cost. In 'over-priced' England the Kef Reference 5 is now £17,500, the DCS 15.5k and BHK 16.5k. I bought it all used at just over half price so I'm happy with that.

As for training you ears to NOT listen to stuff that you don't want to hear, that's easier said than done. I think my point on that is that early recorded  rock music had very little to hear in the 1st place which is why I can find it a bit flat I suppose.

@markprice My apologies -- I think I confused your KEF with a different model. 

markprice

... when I revert back to the music that evokes the passion in me I find that it tends to be of poorer recording quality. I’m 58 now and grew up with the 70’s/80’s Heavy Rock scene with bands like Sabbath, Ozzy, Rainbow, Lizzy ..

Much heavy metal music is by nature compressed and with very limited dynamic range. There are certainly exceptions, but as a genre it’s loud; subtlety and nuance aren’t characteristic. Those qualities are the opposite of what many audiophiles choose for demo music.

Just listened through different recordings of Themes for an imaginary western (Bruce, Mountain, Colusseum etc.) and there are certainly no sonic faults with them. You probably need to integrate your system better with your room. Make use of the eq in Roon. Of course there are always bad recordings.

Save the heavy rock music for when you are in your car, it may sound better to you (without the level of definition at the frequency extremes that your home system provides).