Imaging and Detail.

"If you want to listen to 70s rock recordings, you're better off with a less resolving vintage stereo system, IMO."

Hmm, can't agree with that logic.

I listen to a lot of that stuff on cd, remastered and otherwise, and it is most enjoyable, the best sounding ever on my current setup. If the vinyl and setup is good, that can also. If it doesn't, then something is wrong.

Coincidentally, I noted on my system page just the other day that having heard PF's WYWH on many systems over the years, my standard issue CD now sounds as good or better as I have ever heard it and I heave heard it on many systems vintage and otherwise over the years, so it serves as a good reference for me.

Oh you can just muddle me.. sort of like the mint leaves in a mojito.

If being an Audiophile means not listening to the music I love, I'll pass on being an Audiophile.. If you're doing the Audiophile thing while listening to Zepplin then I think either you need to turn it up or not listen to LZ when you're doing the Audiophool thing.. or maybe as Steve Winwood would say "either light up or leave me alone" By the way my Proac/Rel/Plinius/PS Audio/Cardas/Kimber/Shunyata, system sounds mighty good playing Zep,The Dead, Jackson Browne, The Who, Joni Mitchell, Dave Matthews, Coldplay, Marc Cohn, The Band, The Beatles, The Allman Bros, CSN, etc, etc, etc...

"If Led Zeppelin sounds good on an audiophile system, then it's not an audiophile system in the common definition of an audiophile system."

"Good" is subjective.

LZ sounds good on my system these days.

Has not always been the case though. It has not sounded good to me at times in the past.

A recording does not have to be absolute top notch in all regards to sound good to me. LZ and many 70s classic rock recordings are not SOTA by any stretch yet they all mostly sound good in my current setup.

Good to me means that I can hear what's there clearly and there is nothing bad or blurred going on that hides whatever is in the recording. I've heard them all enough times over the years on enough different good systems to have a good idea of when these recordings are clicking or not. They are clicking with bells on these days including many worse than Zeppelin that never clicked totally before, like Bad Company and some classic 7 Moody Blues for example

Of course what clicks for one may not for another. ITs the nature of the beast.

When you can hear things that you normally do not clearly and the recording can be played loud without offending, that's "clicking" to me.

No doubt for me that these can sound as good or better on a newer system compared to a vintage one. I would not forego a newer system for fear that classic rock will not sound as good as it did on the gear around when these recordings were made.