Is revealing always good?

Completely agree!
I think it can be achieved.
Choose your gear carefully, combine well and your system can be extremely revealing whilst remaining easy on the ear and a pleasure te listen to.

Bad recordings won't sound so bad anymore, much will be revealed of them in a way that makes the most out of it, not ruin it.

Agree that one component or cable in a system can ruin this balance.
It is always easy to blame the recording.

"Hey, didn't this used to be a bad recording?"
I have though many times in the past:)

I think "revealing" is good up to a point. It's great when it's revealing a great recording but when it reveals all the naked shortcomings of a bad recording it may not be so good. Especially considering there are far fewer of the former and many more of the latter.

when it reveals shortcomings of a bad recording, you have succeeded. You dont want to pollute your rig so it makes bad recordings sound acceptable. What you can do is try to make them sound better. My "bad' recordings all went away when I got a new killer preamp, upgraded cables and controlled my vibration and ground as well as finally did something with my room. My motown CDs do show the treble boost but that is on the recording. What you can do is get either a lesser cartridge or lesser cd player (cheaper, not too good at revealing all the flaws, for those 'bad' recordings). You still have a revealing system (better cartridge/cd player for the good recordings) and you haven't compromised your rig. For me, I could not rest until the bad recordings sounded awesome. There really are very few very poor recordings. Even what seems like compressed pop cd's from the 70s can sound better off a hard drive, resampled/clocked and then going through a really good system. You really want to be able to play everything-audiophile cd & vinyl as well as stream tidal and all of it make your jaw drop. Dont compromise...and in order to not compromise, you need to reveal.

Another option is to use a speaker switch box and have warm, easy-to-listen-to speakers in the front corners and higher def speakers situated more forward into the room. If the recording is harsh, press the button that changes the speakers. Or do it manually. Or just use warm, easy-to-listen-to speakers.

I got sick of this too and switched to pro stuff, big JBLs which sound good more often than the audiophile speakers I have tried over the years.

If the recording is harsh, you need to know if the performance was harsh. If it was, no problem. If it wasn't, you need to fix it, not cover it up. If she ain't pretty, wearing dark glasses won't make her prettier.