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Clearly some authors handle those chores better than others. A lot also depends on the content. In the Doc Savage pulps, the authors generally described the main characters in every book of the series, as well as details about where they lived, what they did, about their toys and tools and vehicles, etc, etc... but in such a way as not to bog down the story.
They were also good at concise explanations, applied only at the point where it fit into the story, and rarely as exposition. Occasionally, a character would say something that would obliquely provide such detail, such as: "Boy, Ham, your snappy outfits must drive the Saville Row tailors wild with envy!" "Sure, but they know that if they touch him, he's also great at suing their eyeballs off."
The DS stories also expounded on whatever technology was being used to threaten the good guys, but as they knew they were largely writing to young readers, they avoided technobabble and kept details thin, usually suggesting some scientific theory and then saying, "They must have used that principle to create the contraption"... or they narrated about characters having a "highly complex discussion that would have boggled the mind of most laymen," or something to that effect.
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