Most recordings are, well, average! No surprise there, assuming a Normal Distribution!
Then there are a small % of really good ones and a small % of really bad ones. No surprise there either.
However you achieve it, that is the best you can hope for. If sound quality on average appears to skew one way or the other, there is likely still some tweaking that might be done to make things overall sound the way they should.
Also, IMHO, most average sounding recordings are still quite enjoyable to me,at least these days having done a reasonable job of achieving my desired sound, ie the recording very seldom prevents me from enjoying the music/performance. I think that is a very achievable and practical goal for most! Its often when unrealistic expectations to make average recordings sound great or poor recordings sound average in a pure technical sense that the audio merry go round comes into play and chances are that one will not be able to get off as they continuous seek an unrealistic goal.
I wonder sometimes how often "audiphiles" shoot themselves in the foot in the interest of achieving the ultimate sound with recordings that are inherently inferior to start with? I know I have been prone to that in the past but I think I have learned my lessons. Only great recordings can sound great. But I find most recordings good enough to enjoy on their own terms, even if often this might not measure up to high standards.
Then there are a small % of really good ones and a small % of really bad ones. No surprise there either.
However you achieve it, that is the best you can hope for. If sound quality on average appears to skew one way or the other, there is likely still some tweaking that might be done to make things overall sound the way they should.
Also, IMHO, most average sounding recordings are still quite enjoyable to me,at least these days having done a reasonable job of achieving my desired sound, ie the recording very seldom prevents me from enjoying the music/performance. I think that is a very achievable and practical goal for most! Its often when unrealistic expectations to make average recordings sound great or poor recordings sound average in a pure technical sense that the audio merry go round comes into play and chances are that one will not be able to get off as they continuous seek an unrealistic goal.
I wonder sometimes how often "audiphiles" shoot themselves in the foot in the interest of achieving the ultimate sound with recordings that are inherently inferior to start with? I know I have been prone to that in the past but I think I have learned my lessons. Only great recordings can sound great. But I find most recordings good enough to enjoy on their own terms, even if often this might not measure up to high standards.