Tholt, I agree that for many, the fundamental goal of stereo reproduction is the illusion of the real thing. Not so for photographers. Maybe they are saving themelves a whole bunch of grief not trying to chase down the impossible.
Let's start at the beginning. Are there any recordings that truly sound real? Maybe the best one can hope for is perfect reproduction of what is on the original recording. Because even those are an artistic interpretation by the recording studio, just like a photograph. For example, mic placement can hugely alter how an event is sounds.
So where did this goal come from? Stereophile and the other mag's propagate this so people spend more money trying to achieve what is, dare I say, unachievable. Was this always the goal of hi-end audio? Even back in the 60's when it was considered a main stream, legitimate endeavor by society.
Fact is, when you insert even one wire into the chain, you have irreversibly altered the signal so it is not real anymore.
So when you have the illusion of the real thing in your living room is the stereo creating the illusion or is the listener deceiving himself? Sometimes on first listen and for short periods of time, reproduced audio can be mistaken for the real thing. The classic case is the audio reviewer whose wife calls in from the other room and says it sounds real. Sure, brief non-critical listening. It can happen.
The longer I listen, the more the pieces of phoniness start to make themselves known. In any system. Maybe that's why people keep changing their stereo over and over. The more you listen, the more you hear the defects and thinks by change, they will go away. They do until the new shortcoming pop up. Yes, you can upgrade and the problems are less, but they are never going to go away completely. So where do you stop the madness?
I talked to this one guy who started with Epos and made the rounds for 5 years with many different speakers. I asked him how he compared what he had now to the Epos - balancing out pros an cons - in HIS particular situation. He paused, thought about it, and admitted he really had just been going in circles and had really accomplished nothing. It's all about the journey, I guess.
I see folks getting so into the trees they don't see the forest. For example, John Marks in October 2010 Stereophile who upgrades to Cardas wire and notices the sound is clearer with more bass. But what about the overall perspective that, say, their system with a passive x-over is fundamentally flawed and they are only "polishing a turd"?
