Is revealing always good?

In my revealing system some CDs were unbearable but changing speakers solved the problem. Now it is even more revealing but never bright. There might be many reasons for brightness including some metal dome tweeters, amps with deep negative feedback, jitter, electrical noise etc. Covering the problem with overly warm/colored component is not the way to go IMHO.

John Siau, technical director of Benchmark, stated:

We designed the DAC1 for maximum transparency. If you want to add warmth, you can't add it with a DAC1. Personally, I do not like what warm sounding equipment does to the sound of a piano. Warmth is wonderful on vocals, guitars and certain instruments, but it beats against the streched overtones of a piano. The overtones in a piano occur at slightly higher than harmonic ratios, and these create beat notes with the exact integer ratios produced by electronic equipment (and speakers). Too much harmonic distortion will make a piano sound out of tune.

"So... a theoretical question for all... do tubes (in a pre-amp or the CD player) color and obscure the digititus that is on the disk and thereby give a smoother more listenable presentation?"

No. Any time you buy tube products just because they're tube, in an attempt to fix a problem, you're just asking for trouble. Same thing with cables. Buy components based on how they sound. I know some people will disagree and say buy tubes, and my answer to that is, you can get lucky. Tube products vary in how they sound, every bit as much as SS does. Focus on what the end result needs to be, or you won't get one.

Right now, your situation seems to be OK with the 2 CD players. I do the same thing. I have my nice, high end components with my Wadia CD player set up for the best sound I can get, and for bad recordings I use my Arcam 33. Its not a perfect solution, but it works.

Another thing you may want to consider, depending on how much of your collection is poorly recorded, is to just have a 2nd system set up to be very forgiving.

I'm with Maplegrovemusic 100% on this. :^)

"01-28-15: Dopogue
Since I've never experienced your "too revealing" problem and have had a ton of CD/SACD players -- from $60 Toshibas to my current $3600 Oppo/Modwright -- I have to believe the problem lies elsewhere in your system. Without knowing the components of your system, though, it's impossible even to generalize.

One thing sure, IMO: It is NOT "just the nature of the recordings."

People love to blame the recordings. I used to as well. Its fair enough. People like what they like and vice versa. But my experience has been that if you have reached that conclusion you need to take a step back and look at the things you have control over more thoroughly. The recordings are what they are. Its your system and expectations that you can control. Do that and any music lover should have no problem enjoying most of the recordings that they care about.

Why d'u think women have cosmetic pouch handy? Revealing isn't always good true!