Evaluation of my 2ch system

You've got some good gear, and definitely (IMO) good taste in speakers. You may benefit from a cable upgrade, particularly your interconnects and speaker cables. Don't go hog wild, but it may benefit your system without getting into the gear upgrade hamster wheel.

can you readily hear differences between recording qualities where some sound really good and others just are OK.

I have an older system where it's kind of hard to tell the difference between good and bad recordings but it sounds very nice.

It's a starting point. That's what's really frustrating to me is some recordings are not very good and I get frustrated. But I appreciate it for what it is and the musicianship is always to be respected

It doesn't matter what others think. It only matters what you hear.

However, I'll take this niche saying 1 step further. Idk about others but I am really good at hearing what's not good in a system. Even if I couldn't describe the negatives. Sometimes it takes a week to notice, sometimes a month, but the bads like to find it's way to the surface. 

What does this ultimately mean? Just listen and enjoy your system until you're no longer happy with the negatives. 

I had the amazing Empyrean headphone $3,000. World-class musicality, incredible tonality and timbre. Lush life-like vocal. Bass mids and treble are just musicality turned to 11. Eventually I noticed the headphones tend to sound congested here and there. This might have been an amplification issue, can't say for sure. The point is your ears will eventually show you what improvement is needed. 

I think you have a great system.  I would upgrade your streamer/dac to another level.  The most incredible deal right now is a Meitner MA3 which can be had for $8000 new.  To improve upon the sound of this unit one would have to spend over $20-25k.  A lessr expensive option would be the Wattson Madison LE which is $5k msrp.

@mowntnbkr 

Trigger alert: this is a denigrating post. Not of your system, which is fine midfi, but of you.

Can't you tell if your own system sounds good? If you can't, no one can do it for you. What you're going to get is exactly what you're getting. Guys are going to recommend what's in their own systems. Some idiot is invariably going to tell you that you need some kind of Ethernet cable or box which is guaranteed to do absolutely nothing.

Do yourself a favor and go audition systems, as many as you can, until you start to discern trends and patterns. In other words, go educate yourself.