Please tell me.

I am with you Drum75...

I don't have a "reference system" to compare components with.
I compare against live music, which I am exposed at least weekly, sometimes daily. It is amazing sometimes how my conclusions differ from the audiophile crowd in general.

When they make audiophile recordings, a lot of time they put a microphone on every instrument. Conversely, when "music" is recorded, there are just a few strategically placed microphones in the hall/venue in front of the performers. Same is true in the studio.

Drum

...why try to "accurately" reproduce it? I don't consider instruments coming out of ANY stereo accurate

Yes, well... you are referring to two distinct audiophile approaches:
1) "accurately" reproduce what's on the medium /the recording; this means the result may be good or consistently horrible depending upon the information the medium contains.

2) reproduce a musical result (tonality, balance, musical coherency) that is satisfactory. This means that we depart from totally accurate reproduction of what is on the medium in favour of our own "sonic taste".

I think "audiophile-ism" starts with the second, progresses to the first, and ultimately attempts to incorporate the second.
Seriously "good sound" is an extremely complicated matter and, at the end of the day, you may be reproducing many individual instruments reasonably well -- but not when playing together...

Drum75, do yourself a favor by audition some of the switching amps . I listened to an El Cheapo Audiosources amp300 using the pre-out from the low-entry Denon at my work place and it is amazingly good for its price. Class A, A/B, Tubes...no longer the only choices . Some of the D- amps have the open mid-range and liquid HF to die for. If D-class "budget amp" is not your style, try the Halcro MC20, not accurate and high in distortion but one hell of the soundstage with liquid HF and huge vocals. I'd rather have these switching amp over the A, A/B, Tube amps, anytime...the future is here for audio and so is the 1080P in video.

everybody runds their amps before they send them to you, but after they sit dormant for a while they need some break in again. tube amps are put the sound way to far back and you loose detail. if you like that sound that is fine, but the bryston will still need break in again

Yeah, I grew up on old school "consumer" level hi fi. I use to have Cerwin Vega AT-15's running off my HK... 20 years ago. So you could say I still like BIG sound with LOTS of low end. I hadn't been exposed to "real" hi fi until I was older so I will always have my roots. I have just come to accept that. I felt like I just didn't know how to apperciate "real" hi fi. I now know that real hi fi is in the eye of the beholder. It's easy to get caught up in all these variables to the point where you loose sight of the main objective... hearing the music the way YOU want to hear it. Not being told the way you're "suppose" to hear it. I'm enjoying my system more than ever now that I've given into this idea. Getting past mental quirks is hard... but once you do you find what it is you really desire.