sean: sometimes, i think, it's better being ignorant. you hear the faders because you know what faders are and how they are used. you know that the noise floor is affected by the mic level, so you can perceive it when it changes. these effects may be "getting in your way" because you've not really experienced them before, at least in the system you've described. eventually, i think, you may be able to "enjoy" the work of recording engineers if it's well done. good recordings may be likened to well-edited movies. some such movies (e.g., "run lola run") employ obvious, in-your-face techniques in an artistically satisfying way; others (e.g., "almost famous") employ more subtle but also satisfying editing tricks. the problem with this analogy, of course, is that most recordings are engineered for playback on the radio or less-than-sota systems rather than for the world to see in 70mm. there are, tho, some classic examples of recordings done carefully on primitive equipment that are gems, especially on the most "revealing" of systems.
there is, indeed, a fine line between "musicality" and "accuracy." i remember listening to the first generation of wadia and theta dacs, when they played a monthly game of leap-frog. what impressed me, at first, about this generations of digital devices was the way they took the edge off of previously unbearably bright discs and made them tolerable. as dacs and transports improved, we learned that the earlier sota products had taken the edge off of EVERYTHING. i've just bought another in a long list of dacs i've owned. it's a boulder 1012. after months of listening to this product loaned to me off-and-on by my audio dealer and best friend, i've found that, to my ears, it combines better than anything else i've yet put into my system those ephemeral qualities of musicality and accuracy that seem so often at odds and are at the heart of your query. i applaud you for your efforts to do inexpensively what i haven't the patience or, likely, knowledge to accomplish. you have realized a conundrum some have waited many more years and spent much more money to comprehend. -cfb
there is, indeed, a fine line between "musicality" and "accuracy." i remember listening to the first generation of wadia and theta dacs, when they played a monthly game of leap-frog. what impressed me, at first, about this generations of digital devices was the way they took the edge off of previously unbearably bright discs and made them tolerable. as dacs and transports improved, we learned that the earlier sota products had taken the edge off of EVERYTHING. i've just bought another in a long list of dacs i've owned. it's a boulder 1012. after months of listening to this product loaned to me off-and-on by my audio dealer and best friend, i've found that, to my ears, it combines better than anything else i've yet put into my system those ephemeral qualities of musicality and accuracy that seem so often at odds and are at the heart of your query. i applaud you for your efforts to do inexpensively what i haven't the patience or, likely, knowledge to accomplish. you have realized a conundrum some have waited many more years and spent much more money to comprehend. -cfb