How much is about the recording


For myself, I'm comfortable in knowing I have arrived. At my own personal audio joy through years of empirical data and some engineering knowledge and application. I just wonder how many like minded individuals find as much joy in finding the best recordings vs the perceived next best gear. Peace.
pwayland

@tomcarr +1, utilizing that same grading system as I am culling 2,000 albums down to hopefully 800-1,000 and have to say that I am coming up with about the same #s you have. Enjoy the music

Seriously?
what direction would that be?

if it sounds great with one recording, then it should sound great with 90% of them.
Or maybe my system is “not resolving enough”?

Yes, seriously. I have no idea about what system you have or how resolving it is. That is not my point. On many of the systems I've put together, I can get it to sound absolutely stunning using some very high-quality recordings and the right tune-up. Absolutely knock your socks off. But set up that way 99% of my music sounds like crap. That is not the right direction. You do what you can do to get 90% of the music you listen to sound good. A hot demo set-up only has limited function.  

@russ69 , you have an absolutely great point there, which partially explains why I listen so much more to my secondary outdoor system than I do my main rig (other factors being present, of course).

...which partially explains why I listen so much more to my secondary outdoor system than I do my main rig...

I put together hyper critical systems for decades. I was chasing the Holy Grail, but my enjoyment was diminishing. Somewhere along this time I bought a cheap pair of Grado headphones and a portable CD player. The tunes were rocking. So, I decided to forget chasing the unachievable and tune my systems for my enjoyment. I can still play the super audiophile records with no excuses, but the rest of my recordings also sound great now and I have the music going all the time.