Is revealing always good?

Bombatwalla, excellent explanation. I enjoyed reading it. Thanks,

"Once you replace the offending electronics & convert to a time-coherent speaker (which is minimum phase over most of the audio bandwidth. When I say most i mean something like 200Hz - 8 or 10KHz) all your CDs will become listenable once again. The bad recordings from the early era of Jazz will still be bad recordings but they will be listenable & you will enjoy the music from them."

I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad.

"So, no "revealing" is not good because it signifies distortion/high levels of distortion."

That sounds a little extreme. Some people pay a lot of money for components that reveal more of whats on the recording. I don't see how you could call that distortion at all. Are you sure that you're not confusing revealing with poor timbre? For example, if you have a system where a cymbal sounds like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor, that would be a problem because timbre is wrong. It has nothing to do with how revealing the system is. You could even argue that a harshness in the high frequencies is less revealing. (Assuming, of course, that the recording itself is not at fault.). In a case like this, more revealing would mean having a system that can properly reproduce timbre so a cymbal would sound more like a cymbal, than noise.

Another way to consider this issue, and I suspect this may be what you are referring to in your post, is that you can have a "mixed bag" of components. For example, maybe you have an amp that produces a high level of detail with little distortion, with a preamp that does not. You then have a situation where one well designed component, shows the flaws in another.

I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad.

Zd542, i might have to disagree with you here - i've found that once you setup a system which has minimal distortions (for a particular budget i.e. $), then, well-recorded CDs sound good. The ones that continue to sound bad are the ones that were badly recorded, are compressed & have other maladies.

Are you sure that you're not confusing revealing with poor timbre? For example, if you have a system where a cymbal sounds like someone dropped a piece of metal on a concrete floor, that would be a problem because timbre is wrong. It has nothing to do with how revealing the system is.

yes, I'm not mixing up timbre & revealing.
In fact, what you wrote above in the quote is a distortion for sure. When you have distortion in your components (& the system in general) many things (& often even everything) is wrong including timbre, timing, soundstage & the ability to reveal the nuances of the music.

Another way to consider this issue, and I suspect this may be what you are referring to in your post, is that you can have a "mixed bag" of components. For example, maybe you have an amp that produces a high level of detail with little distortion, with a preamp that does not. You then have a situation where one well designed component, shows the flaws in another.

correct. that's what i'm saying. It's not wrong to have a "mixed bag" of components if what you mean by "mixed bag" is components from different manufacturers. Is that what you mean by "mixed bag" of components?
I've found that there are several manuf within each $ budget that make the lowest distortion, most accurate component. The trick is to find that manuf & that component. If one goes about selecting one's components this way one is bound to end up with diff manuf for the various components but if each component is minimal distortion & accurate sounding then the system as a whole will maintain that attribute.

I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player ....

what in the world does this sentence mean??
Obviously I interpreted it one way (in my mind it meant "low distortion, accurate sounding") & my earlier 04/01/15 response was based on that while Zd542 interpreted it another way (& I'm sure that other members have interpreted it in still other ways).

CORRECTION to the last para of my prev post - the way I interpreted the OP's definition of "revealing" was with reference to context of his entire post which, to me, indicated that certain portions of the frequency spectrum were accentuated/emphasized at the expense of others which made his old recordings CDs unlistenable. My 04/01/15 response was based on that interpretation of "revealing".
More often than not on Audiogon forums people have used "revealing" & "transparent" in derogatory terms to indicate that their play-back audio spectrum is tipped in favoring one region of the audio spectrum or the other.
In my mind I would like "revealing" & "transparent" to mean "low distortion & accurate sounding" but that''s not the way i read the posts most of the time - most of the time people are complaining that their component/system is "revealing", "transparent" & the OPs orig post is just one such example.

Spot on Bombaywalla.

Most posts here, whether it be when someone speaks of a cables ability to unravel nuances, or a speakers penchant for accuracy, or in this case, a CDP that reveals, the feedback seems to bring a lot of baggage from other threads.

I love detail and the ability to hear all that's going on without the harshness or etch. Both are completely different arguments yet they are too often conflated and lead to some long and heated diatribes, with folk speaking past each other.

All the best,
Nonoise