Let the best be your guide

@rvpiano It looks like our brains are wired the same way. I do exactly as you describe.

Many of my favorite recordings are from decades ago when the technology was quite primitive or later recordings done by independent artists who had a low budget or wanted a "low fi" sound. I love these records and CDs but after listening to one or two I find that I need to put on something that sounds really good. It's like driving my Charger R/T around town for a while, never getting over 35 mph, and needing to get on the freeway and floor it just to make sure that the kick is still there.

You wonder how these crappy sounding recordings get made. Presumably there are sound engineers who know what they’re doing. Yet some recordings are released with a lack of bass, or shrillness or some other defect. How does it happen? Are they aiming for the lo fi market or what? Hi resolving sets bring out all the flaws.

 I have a Loki equalizer which I took out of my system because there were getting to be too many wires.  Maybe I shouldn’t have.

Before we became audioholics we could listen to music and fill in the gaps of sound that were missing from the recording. Our remembering of the real thing was there to supplant the missing fidelity. It would be nice to go back that way again. It’s very hard but I think, at times, some can.

FWIW, I have my stereo system in a room 2 walls and 12 feet away from my large office. My system is on all day to FM or a multi play CDP. I thoroughly enjoy my music in the office. Then I go into my music room and sit down in the 'sweet spot' and get all the 'audiophile addict' tendencies which I have sort of trained myself not to be absorbed by. That sweet spot and the focus on soundstaging can be the real killer of the 'music'. In a perfect world listening off axis and in mono would be the preferred methodology, and you could fill your room with the 'sound of music'. :-)

I can enjoy music on the car radio or whatever mediocre source. But in my system at home I want everything to sound as good as possible.For subpar recordings I'll choose to "color" them via eq.After listening to live music as a teen I began to think about if and how to recapture that aliveness at home someday.