Quality system, make poor recordings sound better?

If you have a largish and diverse music collection it ultimately comes down to being a balancing act. You don't want soft and pleasant, but you also don't want electron microscope grade resolution. Over time you'll learn what works best for you.

To the extent that some of the problems with poorer recordings are frequency response based, a big plus for HD based digital playback is the availability of transparent, highly flexible and easy to use EQ solutions.

Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" and PJ Harvey's "4 Track Demos" are wonderful performances. Both were recorded with inexpensive mics using cassette recorders and they really don't sound very good. Rather than highlight the problems with these records I want a system that captures the energy and soulfulness of the performers.

A system can be "better" in terms of extension and resolution, but not distortion, and that can make a large number of recordings sound bad.

But my goal is to improve through lower distortion wherever the case, as tough as it is to do. And I mean the important distortions, ringing in analog front ends, intermodulation on speakers, ringing tweeters on speakers, etc. And by doing this I find I get much more detail, more insight into the performance, yet much more listening ease at the same time. And I find that a larger number of recordings sound better, not just a few.

Offsetting colorations, the old "yin and yang" theory, does not get you there as each coloration is a distortion. When you decide to live with colored (in a more than average sense) components you are just stacking up more distortion, so while you might get a semblance of "neutral tonality", it will be loaded with distortion, and not easy or fulfilling to listen to.

There is no such thing as a neutral, balanced system that is "so accurate it is hard to listen to on most records". That is a system that is the opposite, it has veered from neutrality.

Omsed,
Well said.

Phd, FWIW, I have horns too and no worries on the top end. However, I can't listen to passive volume controls in my system- they come off too bright and no bass relative to my preamp.

Also, generally speaking horn speakers don't play well with transistors; the reason being that horns are often highly reactive and present a lot of back EMF to the amplifier. If the amplifier employs negative feedback, unless the designer really did his homework to prevent radio frequencies from entering the amp through the feedback network, that and the back EMF will really cause the amp to be shrill.

This is one reason you find most horn installations using tubes.

I've gotten my system 'tuned' to be able to enjoy a wide variety of vinyl (my
only source). Whether that means the system is colored or not, I hear a
huge difference among different recordings and different pressings. I use
horns as well (with SET amps and tubes all the way back through the line
stage and phono stage). My system is hardly the 'best' and I hear its
inherent limitations, though those don't bother me- the differences in
recordings and pressings seem to be far more pronounced when I listen to
a range of material.
The notion of 'accuracy' has always baffled me- most recordings are
gimmicked to some degree, and fidelity to the actual event (if there even
was one, rather than something cobbled together on multiple tracks from
different sessions) is a virtual impossiblity as a benchmark.

Maybe Ralph has the ability to make such comparisons if he does
recordings of actual events, then cuts a record from them.

I'm less interested in how the system sounds over some audiophile
approved record and more interested in how it sounds across a wide range
of material.

For me, if the midrange isn't pure, clear and grainless, the rest doesn't
matter. I can live with the sins of omission.
In the end, I think each of us has our sense of what sounds 'right,' whether
it is a function of taste, preference or experience. Which may explain the
wide variety of different sounding systems that different people regard as
impressive or desirable. Not advocating anything here, just another
blithering insight into what may be obvious.