Is revealing always good?

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

Bombaywalla, to me it also means "low distortion & accurate sounding". Many low-end systems sound muffled to me and that might be good in comparison to open sounding low-end systems projecting brightness harshness and distortion, but to me revealing is the objective. I had problem with many CDs sounding harsh or bright with new revealing DAC and amp. Changing speakers made sound even more revealing but pretty much all CDs sound good now.

Early CDs were digitized with jittery A/D converters. The only way to fix it is to digitize them again if original analog master tapes still exist. They will sound harsh but would you make your whole system less revealing just because of that?

Thanks for the feedback Nonoise & Kijanki. good for me to note that I'm not the only one who feels this way...... :-)

Is revealing always good?
I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player (and AVM player). Because I listen to redbook CD's and 705 of the CD's I listen to are jazz recordings from ca. 1955-1963 the recordings often have bad "digititus." The piano's ring, clarinet is harsh, transients are blurred --- just the nature of the recordings. With a revealing CD player, all this was palpably evident so much so that at least 1/2 those CD's were rendered unlistenable. Now, with a cheaper, more colored CD player (a new Creek) --- not nearly as revealing --- one that "rounds off" some of this digititus, these CD's are again listenable.....

This para by the OP is written with a derogatory slant to maligning the "revealing" & "transparent" nature of the AVM CDP. (I have no idea whether the AVM CDP is actually revealing & transparent but will simply accept the OP's word that it is).
So, I'll go back to my 04/01/15 post where I wrote that the OP has a high distortion component or components in his signal chain that have now been disclosed since installing the AVM CDP into the system. This/these components need to be identified & changed out or modified to reduce/eliminate the distortion.

So... is revealing a particularly good thing for redbook CD playback? I think not. is "colored" always a bad thing? I'd say no. At least for CD playback. Thoughts?
Robsker

The way the preceding para was written with a derogatory slant to 'revealing' & 'transparent', the conclusion that Robsker came to is self-fulfilling to a "no". I noted this negative slant in the OP's opening para hence wrote (in my 04/01/15 post) that revealing in this particular sense is not good as it speaks of distortion.

In reality, you actually do want "revealing" & "Transparent" (as Kijanki also wrote) in a positive sense such that one's system is "low distortion & accurate". I've noted that the best systems are always accurate/low-distortion/revealing in a positive/good way. In such accurate/low-distortion/revealing systems, increasing the volume simply increases the SPL & distortion still remains minimal (of course to a point until the preamp &/or power amp have output signals that are close to their max). Such accurate/low-distortion/revealing systems are (what I call) a chameleon in that they had no sonic signature of their own but take on the sonic signature of the source material. Of course, there are very few systems that are 100% this way but the aim is to make one's system trend in this direction as much as one's pocket-book & listening room would allow. The pleasures from such a system are long-term as such a system will always convey the emotion of the music to engage the listener.
Badly recorded CDs still sound bad but are very much listenable.....

you do not want "colored" in digital playback as that is also a distortion; the only thing is that it is a distortion that is more euphonic/pleasing to the ear. One will be satisfied with such a sound for a short while but will yearn for more accurate sound very soon. There are several tube components of the 1970s, 1980s that had a certain "tube glow" to them. All very nice until you heard a more accurate system & realized how much better the sound could be.