Understandable, but you've created a contradictory argument. If I'm striving to reproduce live music than coloured (which is a term that didn't exist until "bright" numbers satisfying equipment entered the field anyway) equipment is a necessity. When is the last time you went to a concert that spanned an 'accurately transparent frequency range' from 20hz to 20khz? I'll answer that for you, never. So ascertaining neutral equipment that is transparent but also an accurate reproduction of live music is a perpendicular statement. Musicians' instruments are coloured, they vibrate with distortion, the music doesn't come from a sealed vacuum it comes from buzzing equipment that generates an audible noise floor. To find ideals like this you'd have to look at magazines that do not use the formula of increased advertising equating better reviews. Joe Roberts would be an excellent example in his articles within Sound Practices. Peter Qvortup of Audio Note is also a great example of engineers that look for sound rather than meeting exacting graph responses. So yes, I'd agree with your stipulation that designers like these depart from neutral or accurate presentations to favor a coloured or soulful approach. But if you're trying to reproduce a live music setting that is inaccurate to start with, you cannot fool your ears into believing it without conforming to its inherent approach.
Now, lets not kid ourselves, we need not look that far for gear that is "wildly harsh." The benchmark DAC is an easy target as is most equipment produced today, tube or solid state (almost any KT88 amp will fit the bill). The 80s solid state gear was predominantly fueled by a want to replicate "tube like sound", think Amber series 70, Sansui, even your Kenwood tuner (late 70s I think). What I'll give the moniker of a paradigm shift, didn't occur until the late 80s and early 90s. Around this time equipment specifications were published, more so than just their surface specifications, and consumers used these as guidelines and now rules by which to grade their components. To meet more stringent guidelines a paradigm shift in musical taste had to occur; from a warm soulful, live sounding auditory reproduction to thin, accurate, transient reproduction. Again, if that's what you like then by all means, but you need to hear both sides of the argument. Plantsman, you, whether you like it or not, are on my side from what I can tell in your listed gear. The Roksan Xexes is a very nice coloured, muiscal, dimensional turntable, I used to have one so I'm aware of its sonic characteristics. You've exemplified these characteristics with your cartridge choice. Granted that is your source and I've no idea what your actual transmission line is. But from the two components you have listed, I'm not sure why you assert that you want your gear so neutral when it is, in fact, straying from the mark if anything. I'm sure you have good ears if you've been to a great deal of concerts, I can tell by your source list, there's no need to categorize your gear as something that it isn't to fit the modern stereotype.
