I would just suggest you listen to what you can and form your own opinions.
A few of mine:
There was a recent discussion here regarding Array 1400 and K2-9900 systems.
Both can reproduce music wonderfully. Which is "best"? I claim that to be
an unanswerable question, other than for the individual ... and even
that individual's opinion is malleable.
My personal preference, end-to-end, is more toward what JeffW described
(just pass the signal through, with minimum affectation). This is actually
quite difficult, and as such, one can live with limitations that least collide
with their preferences. Some actually prefer the euphonious coloration
of even-ordered distortion, artificial sound fields, tilted spectra balance,
etc... or have particular sensitivities to less pleasant "distortions" that
others seem "immune" to. I have equipment and tools to manipulate
several of those kinds of "pleasant colorations", but most often they
remain outside of the listening chain (although I -do- like listening to large
scale "live" recordings using a 3-ch TriField processor
)
Once one has matured their listening preferences then things like
usability (including compatibility with other selected gear), quality,
aesthetics, serviceability, ... can come into play ... or not. For some
it's sound first, damn everything else ... for others, it has to be
beautiful and/or impressive. Honestly, I like a bit of both.
Mostly, I like my sound system best when I'm not mucking around
with it and it's doing what I prefer it to do: transport me, change my
mood, make me want to dance around, tap my toe, play air guitar or
drums, change a group (>1) dynamic, improve my quality of life ...