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Is revealing always good?

I recently bought a very revealing and transparent CD player (and AVM player). Because I listen to redbook CD's and 705 of the CD's I listen to are jazz recordings from ca. 1955-1963 the recordings often have bad "digititus." The piano's ring, clarinet is harsh, transients are blurred --- just the nature of the recordings. With a revealing CD player, all this was palpably evident so much so that at least 1/2 those CD's were rendered unlistenable. Now, with a cheaper, more colored CD player (a new Creek) --- not nearly as revealing --- one that "rounds off" some of this digititus, these CD's are again listenable.

So... is revealing a particularly good thing for redbook CD playback? I think not. is "colored" always a bad thing? I'd say no. At least for CD playback. Thoughts?
robsker
charles1dad's avatar
charles1dad
10,230 posts
 
Bombaywalla,
Hello, I have to agree with your distinction between true transparency and revealing as compared to the hi-fi vernacular of those terms. When people complain of too much transparency, I have written before that this in reality makes no sense, you can never have too much true transparency. The problem is as you clearly pointed out is that the false tilted up high frequency information is confused with being a more revealing sound, wrong conclusion. In my opinion the more genuine revealing and transparency that you are able to achieve, the more natural and realistic your music will actually sound. You'll hear more nuance which is desirable. So, count me as another person who agrees with your well written explanation.
Charles,
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Thanks for your kind words, Charles1dad.
zd542
5,339 posts
 
"04-06-15: Bombaywalla

I wish that were the case, but its not always true. Sometimes you have the system set up properly, and the CD's still sound bad.

Zd542, i might have to disagree with you here - i've found that once you setup a system which has minimal distortions (for a particular budget i.e. $), then, well-recorded CDs sound good. The ones that continue to sound bad are the ones that were badly recorded, are compressed & have other maladies."

I should have been more clear. You're right. If you get everything setup properly, the recording itself is what will hold you back.
bombaywalla's avatar
bombaywalla
1,958 posts
 
Cool Zd542, we are on the same page then. Thanks.
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