Accuracy doesn't have to mean harsh, hard, or nasty sounding. Most recordings are actually less harsh than people would like to believe. That's because most systems have hardness and harshness built in. A lot of it comes from using speakers with passive crossovers in critical ranges of human hearing, but I've also found that certain tubes and even certain cables tend to sound hard or harsh.
And you can have fast loud musical transients that won't hurt your ears. But I'll grant you that there are certain recordings that contain distortion, harshness and stridency that is not pleasant. But I believe there are fewer of those recordings than most people realize.
Wide dynamic swings with fast transients are an integral part of a lot of music and can sound great if the system can deliver what is there -- no more and no less. I can't imagine being content with any system that was so laid back and smooth that it seriously compresses the dynamics and removes/smooths musical transients from the music. I guess some folks prefer that alternative to harshness, but that may be because they haven't heard a system that was truly neutral and transparent. I believe such systems are in the extreme minority -- no matter how much money one spends. A lot of the so-called ruthlessly revealing types of systems are seriously flawed, in my view. The music they reproduce does not sound like actual music played by real acoustic instruments. If you want to confirm that, just go to a live unamplified concert and judge for yourself.
And you can have fast loud musical transients that won't hurt your ears. But I'll grant you that there are certain recordings that contain distortion, harshness and stridency that is not pleasant. But I believe there are fewer of those recordings than most people realize.
Wide dynamic swings with fast transients are an integral part of a lot of music and can sound great if the system can deliver what is there -- no more and no less. I can't imagine being content with any system that was so laid back and smooth that it seriously compresses the dynamics and removes/smooths musical transients from the music. I guess some folks prefer that alternative to harshness, but that may be because they haven't heard a system that was truly neutral and transparent. I believe such systems are in the extreme minority -- no matter how much money one spends. A lot of the so-called ruthlessly revealing types of systems are seriously flawed, in my view. The music they reproduce does not sound like actual music played by real acoustic instruments. If you want to confirm that, just go to a live unamplified concert and judge for yourself.