Does it have to sound good for you to like it?

Come on guys, you might just be taking this out of context or taking it a wee bit too seriously. It could be a compliment.

His CV (not resume) permits him to say WETFHW (IMHO).

cheers!

Unless the music has some special meaning for me l focus very heavily on music that is recorded at high-quality. One of the great things about this era is that the streaming services make an almost unlimited supply of music available at your fingertips, so there is plenty of high-quality recordings from which to choose. Alan Parsons is actually a pretty good example of how this works for me. I really enjoy Al Stewart, But in my estimation, the albums that Alan Parsons produced for him are so far superior to the others that I find myself listening only to them.

like so much of this, this is something that will certainly vary from person to person and I don’t think there is a right or wrong, just what brings you the most enjoyment

Some of the best songs in the world are very poorly recorded. Eg: The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by Roberta Flack. It still touches your heart and soul. So recording quality is not a must for me. I listen a lot of ordinary songs if recording is spectacular just to hear how well system presents the song. Recording quality definitely matters but if song is good it is not a deal breaker.

Except Parsons knows about gear and sound way more than any audiophile. Or even whole bunch if them.

@mikhailark You have no idea what he knows about high-end home audio gear, systems, or audiophiles. You just assume because he records/plays music he knows about being an audiophile, but in practice they’re very different disciplines and ironically often worlds apart. I know a couple recording engineers and many musicians, and they mostly don’t know squat about home audio and even less about audiophiles. Parsons probably knows far, far more musicians than he does true audiophiles, and his comment is more inline with what a musician who’s clueless about home audio or audiophiles would say. IME audiophiles care much more about music than the ordinary person, so much so that we spend great sums on systems to experience it at a significantly higher level. You don’t become an audiophile unless you love and greatly appreciate music — period — which is why Parsons’ comment is overgeneralized, off base, and frankly a bit insulting.

@soix  I agree. Lots of musicians know very little about quality home audio. Audiophiles comprise a very small fraction of consumers of music. Most are casual listeners. My friends think I’m nuts for spending a significant amount of money on a system. 

parsons sure did know how to produce a record though