Evaluating a system - what do you listen for?


I have been in this hobby a long time and my opinion of what I want to hear in reproduced music continues to evolve. Having owned many systems - and critically listened to many, many more - I am now looking for an overall sound that as accurately as possible captures the tone and tempo of the music with enough of a bass foundation to convincingly portray an orchestra at full tilt or club beats while still nailing the timbre of an upright bass. Decent portrayal of leading and trailing edges is nice, and a high end that’s fully present and balanced without stridency is a big plus. Detail’s good, but hyper detail without musical flow can be distracting. Airy treble and pinpoint or large soundstage are also nice to have, but if what’s coming out of the speakers doesn’t make me want to tap my toe or cry a little bit when a vocalist holds a note just so, then what’s the point? That’s what I’m looking for these days - what about you?
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All excellent answers. Timbre has to be "right". Imaging, soundstage, microdynamics and macrodynamics.
2nd Note;
a Piano is both percussive and melodic, most systems do not get this instrument correct.
Piano is an instrument about as difficult to reproduce as there is. As jafant just said, both percussive and melodic, it's frequency range also being very, very wide---very low to relatively high. That makes it very revealing of the octave-to-octave frequency response balance of loudspeakers and phono pickups. And extremely dynamic, a good recording of one being an excellent test of a pickups tracking ability. Many produce a "shattered", breaking glass sound when pushed hard.