Kirkus, thank you: your statements, "it takes just ONE instance of having experienced reproduced sound as being real" and "been dumbfounded by amazing experiences from really crappy stuff, and also underwhelmed by my experiences with some really beautiful machinery", is precisely where I'm coming from. My particular angle, "obsession", etc, for many years has been to work out, and am now repeating myself, what the HELL IS going on!! I have been attempting this essentially by the process of elimination, and for me the answer is (drum roll ...) the glib statement, Everything Matters! I've found unless one becomes totally anal (sorry!) about the whole kit and kaboodle, or you fluke it to some degree, then it won't happen, it won't be "real"!
To whip out yet another analogy -- love those things :-) -- take a typical commercial passenger aircraft. To me, the audio industry is full of people who say, for example, it's all about the engines, you've gotta have turbines using this very special metal, and the fuel lines going to them have to be made out a really esoteric plastic, don't worry about the wings or landing gear, any old stuff will do. Another says, no, no, no, it's all about the cockpit, unless you get this set up perfectly it's hopeless, what's used in the rest of the airframe is pretty irrelevant ...
Would you fly in a plane designed or maintained by these people? No, I don't think so ... and for me that's what it's all about in hifi too, to get the experience of a system sounding "real" each and every time you listen to it, you have to fussy about EVERYTHING ...
Frank
To whip out yet another analogy -- love those things :-) -- take a typical commercial passenger aircraft. To me, the audio industry is full of people who say, for example, it's all about the engines, you've gotta have turbines using this very special metal, and the fuel lines going to them have to be made out a really esoteric plastic, don't worry about the wings or landing gear, any old stuff will do. Another says, no, no, no, it's all about the cockpit, unless you get this set up perfectly it's hopeless, what's used in the rest of the airframe is pretty irrelevant ...
Would you fly in a plane designed or maintained by these people? No, I don't think so ... and for me that's what it's all about in hifi too, to get the experience of a system sounding "real" each and every time you listen to it, you have to fussy about EVERYTHING ...
Frank