Pre amps cost vs. value ... what I discovered last month.

no worries @simao i didn't notice.  Again, no fear of perfectionism around me, we are communicating here not posturing to be the smartest person in the room

@brhatten I'm not sure how to respond to "most natural, life like reproduction of the music that was heard during the recording process?"  Recordings in the modern world, like aways truly, are distorted and mangled and manipulated on purpose as part of the presentation.  It's an ongoing sculpture of intentional distortions and non life like filtering.  The aim of music is not the live event.  Even live recordings will never and CAN NEVER measure up to the live event.  That is a mythical unicorn that takes up too make people's time as a criteria.

Similarly I'm confused by "compromised the end product in terms of dynamics, soundstaging"  

The recording process does not end at mixing.  Everything that comes to me comes out better in terms of musicality, punch, artistic statement, clarity, soundstage, freq balance, ability to connect, etc.  Now does that mean that it has more DR? Usually no, does not. 

So if DR is your main criteria, on an island, then you will be disappointed.   Yet my argument would be that LOWER DR sounds like MORE DR when it's done correctly. 

I can get into that more if you like but if you are looking for DR at 10db or greater, I do hundreds of records a year and can't point you toward one of those.  I would say the same is true of most MEs working today.

Thanks for your response. It is very educational to hear it from that perspective. 

I guess my questions  we’re coming from my observations while listening to multiple pieces of music from different recording artist. For example, I frequently listen to streaming music played through a very revealing, dynamic home system.  As it goes through different pieces of music I find incredible variations between the width and depth of soundstahing, And what sound like transparency of instruments and voice. 

 There are some pieces of music that reproduce the voices with such an amazing accuracy that it feels like the person is in the room. But, there are many other recordings of voices that sound bland and flat. 

On some recordings it sounds to me like instruments get layered directly on top of each other, pinpointed in the center of the soundstage. However, other times the instruments are “placed” in a sonic soundstage capturing the images as if they are standing next to each other (rather than on top of each other) on the stage between the speakers.

 There are some classical symphonic recording that create a soundstage where individual instruments are holographically positioned in space and can be easily “seen” in that stable space repeatedly during the musical piece. However, that experience is not universal by any means in other pieces of music. 

There are some jazz pieces  where the instrumental lines of music seem to  interact with each other with natural decay and rhythm that gives a sense of pace and and interaction of the instruments. But in other recordings, each instrument seems to cover the other and congeal the natural sound of each other. 

So I guess I’m asking, how much of these phenomenons that we hear is related to the work that you do and what control do you have in creating this?

Every record is a journey of creation, and you are hearing all the moments added up in the product, as you can tell.  That is very hard to dissect in an abstract conversation.  There are intentions, and there are results. Intentions vary and skills in getting results vary, wildly.

It’s hard to say anything without hearing a record and talking in specifics. If you heard the mix/master here it would be clear what I do.

I do not mix (panning, dynamics, relative level and EQ, distortion), record (tone, dynamics, distortion), arrange, or write.
Each step has tremendous power: Moment of Inspiration, Arranging, Performance Tracking Engineer, Mixing Engineer, Mastering Engineer.
Sure, I make everything better musically and technically (the way you’re talking about it is technical). Thus the career.   More spacious, clear, powerful, detailed, etc. Yet the way I approach mastering is about CONNECTING artists to audience. The tech side are just tools.

While we are on the subject of adding a component between the amp and the speakers.we should not downplay the adverse affects of the crossover....All those electronic elements blocking the audio path.

@soundsrealaudio   Often true about adding a crossover and how it can "cloud-up" the sound.  Richard Vandersteen's M5-HP remarkably results in better overall sound as using the powered Vandy subwoofer relieves the main system amp of having to do so resulting in more open, dynamic system sound.  The only rub is the cost, but it is well worth shelling out about a grand for them.  They really are that good!😁