Is a highly discerning system enjoyable?

"Is a highly discerning system enjoyable?"

It is to me. But then again,  I am highly discerning ;)

Have any of you ever listened to a system built by an audiophile who kept chasing details?  They end up in some very weird places.

I have built systems where I chased details and ended up in very weird places. I usually didn't realize how weird until I quit listening to it for a while and then fired it back up a few days later. "Discerning" can have a lot of meaning in terms of audio reproduction. You can have stuff that's discerning in all sorts of different ways. By masking one thing you may be able to better hear something else. This seems like a win until you become very aware of the masking effect and suddenly find it unacceptable. Certain tonal colorations can make things pop, and this can get tricky because I've found some of these setups to sound tonally weird for the first few minutes but then I adjust and can listen in bliss for hours. Conversely I've found some setups to sound very open, spacious, and airy in the first few minutes but then become fatigued within 20 minutes. Too many early reflections in the higher frequencies I think. It sounds great at first but then my brain stops trying to interpret it and everything starts to sound flat and homogenized.  It's complicated. As for specific equipment, it's mostly DIY speakers and various combinations of cheap amps in my case. Playing with a quickly adjustable EQ and then having your ears quickly making adjustments to your new settings can lead you down a rabbit's hole. I've been going through this lately - coming up with a killer EQ curve in the evening and then removing it after hearing it with fresh ears after a 24 hour break. I've listened to high end gear and heard ghastly sound in some rooms. At the last trade show I was at some of the best overall sound I heard (almost the best) was from $600 self powered bookshelf sized speakers with bluetooth built in. The best was actually from some $12000 bookshelf speakers which were being fed a signal from a cheap dongle dac off a macbook. That proved to me that a good amp and speakers can make a cheap dac sound fabulous rather than "reveal" the faults of the dac. Another close contender were some KEF bookshelf speakers. In all these cases I think the secret ingredient was small speakers listened to at fairly close range, limiting the effects of hotel room acoustical issues. If all your equipment is decent and nothing is hooked up wrong it should sound very  enjoyable on almost anything you play through it. If it doesn't sound good, and especially if it sounds bad in a consistent way on most material, then I'll bet that's probably a room acoustics issue. 

Got home after a few days away.

Yes, got my copy of War out and listened to it on the current set up.

So much missing in the production. Preferred it in the car…

Tried listening to it on two different systems. My main set up, as well as on a vintage set up I’m playing with. Ariston RD11S, Marantz 2230 and Dynaco A25’s.

Main system far more revealing, and showcased the complex production that lies hidden in all that upper midrange. Vintage system did not reveal all that detail, and because of not revealing it, kind of made it into a bigger jumble of noise.

The problem I have w this recording is how there seems to be a heaping amount of mid/lower midrange tone that is missing. It’s missing in both systems.

But given the choice, would rather hear the clarity in the detail, than not.

Just my experience with one recording as I explored this questIon.

So much missing in the production. Preferred it in the car

@perkri 

Right?

The problem I have w this recording is how there seems to be a heaping amount of mid/lower midrange tone that is missing. It’s missing in both systems.

And to think this was before digital drums were really a thing.  I mean this is the producer making drums sound awful.