So how can a great system solve less than great recordings

I listen to music that I love, not the fidelity of a recording for the sake of its sound. The very idea of Audiophile recordings makes me disgusted. My kit is very resolving with a Brinkmann Balance, OTL amplifiers, and field-coiled loudspeakers. Now do I hear that some recordings are better than others? Sure! Do I wish some of my favorites sounded better? Also, a sure thing! Now I find that say, a line-contact cartridge, setup properly with good SRA and zenith alignment, and having a “right” pressing makes a huge difference, perhaps a decided one, but I never pursue sound over performance and my particular music favorites. Never(.) Often this way of retrieval reduces the noise and dramatically increases the fidelity, but there are no simple and universal answers. Guess that’s why I bristle at the idea of being an audiophile. There may well be more forgiving equipment in its portrayal and yet still be highly resolving, but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured.

@ghdprentice: 

"I have always been very careful to navigate my evolving system towards greater fidelity but to stay slightly back from ultra detailed / revealing. One step to far and many recordings sound bad... there are at least two kinds of bad... lack of dynamics and noisy harsh. I am very turned off by noisy / harsh. I want to listen to the music not the system... I want an emotional connection with the music, not to be sure I clearly hear the 2nd violinist move his foot"

+1 

Mr Sayles
have great respect for your knowledge.  I may revisit vinyl someday but thats a financial rabit hole i want to stay away from.   For now i am staying content with the streaming side.

@r_f_sayles 

"..but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured"

That's just it.

I think thought that digital manipulation of sound is a lot more difficult when it comes to audio than when it comes to images.

However when I took a good look at some initially impressive digitally enhanced family photographs it began to look as if it was more of a case of diverting attention rather than any extra resolution. 

Therefore I'd say that image enhancement works better when it comes to removing damage than it does to actually adding resolution.

Perhaps remastering works on the same way? Once you have the lowest generation master tape - the best you can do is to try to remove damage.

The rest is simply case of diverting attention. A practice which has led to the disastrous dynamics crushing 'loudness wars' as well as sometimes adding gross treble artefacts (new, improved etc)

Here's an article that describes how enhancement seems to work.


https://www.lumenera.com/blog/the-truth-about-enhancing-images-what-s-possible-and-what-s-not