Neutral electronics are a farce...

Some studio consoles are excellent and others not so good.

I do a lot of listening on Grado headphones; they are trustworthy.

We built up 6 channels of vacuum-tube microphone preamps which are wired directly into the tape machines- no intervening mixer console; no EQ, nothing but the mic. Our monitors are made by High Emotion Audio and are very fast and revealing. I don't think there is any Yamaha gear in the entire recording chain...

^^^ ... I agree bgp24.  

The proof of what you're saying is when you hear a CD that's been ripped right off of the master tape with no added digital reverb and very little or no EQ. Just a flat recording one step from the original source. When you hear a great CD like that, one can clearly hear how so many of the recording engineers really foul things up. Totally unnecessary too. Amazing. 

I've done a little mixing, some with Yamaha NS-10s.  I think of them as a critical-listening speaker, not a listening-for-pleasure speaker.  I'd be curious to hear from the pros as to whether that's a valid distinction.
I know one thing:  when I'm testing a mix it sounds different on every single system I try.  It's maddening.

I am another believer in recordings are the first thing to blame when sound is not good in a hifi system. And i believe they are 90% good to great in actuality . There is no way in hell big record labeles are putting out crappy sounding records . Can you imagine the producers , studio engineers , execs doing a listening session before release and the sound making their ears bleed from crappy sound . Then they tell the record execs  "don't worry it will it will sound better on a car radio" . nonsense i say 

Auratones…man…and I think the only valid explanation of NS10s is everybody had them, but I have never been able to stand those damn things…they give me a headache. Note that mastering has a huge impact on the final sound…luckily…Bob Ludwig, et al…save the day often.