IMHO (ONLY)-
mid-fi systems are helpful in masking many rock (as well as many other) alblums' distortions and mixing errors. these distortions are, again, to my ears, EXTREMELY distracting on a high-resolution system.
example 1. Jefferson Airplane- Surrealistic Pillow (std. cheap pressing)- forget about it- on my VPI/Fancy Rig the sound is thin and noisy (aside from surface noise). i always loved to listen and relax to this record over the years- what happened? example 2.a reel-to reel tape of HAYDN'S london symphony (#104-my favorite) made from an "ok" pressing/thorens turntable- on a less resolving system this tape sounds fantastic, with a pleasant bump in the midbass, some scratchiness in the strings but a pleasant overall sonority non-the-less. same tape on my fancy rig- now the bass bump and the distortion become more artificial sounding and the treble sounds closed in, so i am now wanting to get an SACD version to listen to instead- the economy 2-cd Haydn set i bought for $12 is lacking realism as well.
i even have a JVC boombox which, i swear, will amaze alot of people when i put on hendrix, csn&y, airplane, etc. even cassette tapes sound fine. something happened years ago when a thorens or a dual turntable (garrard, bsr, whatever), a receiver, and a nice pair of acoustic suspension speakers, would sound utterly convincing on rock, pop, classical, virtually anything you could throw at it. but now, not that it's all bad of course, but high-resolution/high definition sound is available but complicated and expensive to acheive.
"okay" sound, whether it's due to the vintage nature of the source, or new compressed formats, are usually (much) better off experienced on a bose radio, a car stereo, or inexpensive headphones. i just get nostalgic when i remember how nice my records, all my records (except for the scratched ones) used to sound back in the 60's and 70's,
on good, affordable equipment. and all through little skinny cables thrown in for free...
