Hifi V.s. The music makers

The OP's stated premise is kind of like the one about all that wiring that exists before it gets to your outlet so why bother about the last few feet from said outlet to your system.

To that I say that once the recording is made, worrying about which cable to use in my system makes about as much sense as worrying about which speaker I should use or which source to use. It's my choice which depends on my taste.

I don't feel that I'm, in the least way, changing anything about the original recording.

This is not meant as a negative response to the OP's question but an answer of sorts that in the end begs the matter that to me, the final result (the recording), is just another link in the chain that ends up with a system of my choice to hear it in a way I like, being an audiophile and all that. :-)

All the best,
Nonoise

They are also looking for absolute
"truth" to what they are hearing . no colorations. I ask why we
are so determined to alter their work ?

No, they don't. They're trying to predict how it will sound at home. Stereo
image is constructed from multi-microphone recording, compression is
applied etc. We're not trying to alter their work. Most of us don't even
have tone controls. We're trying to obtain clear, natural sounding 3D
image from what they constructed. Truth, as you call it, would require
zero compression, making it very difficult for the most of us to play since
we cannot provide required dynamic range either because of equipment or
ambient noise (or neighbors).

Some of recordings that suppose to be the "truth" are simply
atrocious while some are breathtaking and everything else in in between -
just an average. I agree with Czarivey, that music takes huge precedence
over recording quality but I tend to search for recordings that have both.

There are musicians and there are the recording arts. The musicians produce the raw material for the recording artists/engineers to use in their product. Sometimes the musician is highly involved and sometimes not.
Not to go too far off course but audiophiles play the product produced by the art of recording, and in my opinion that's what we should be doing not trying to put the musician/musicians in the room. They are two different things and both have their own merits.

Russ, this and that is true, but no great recording artist can make poor performance great while great musician can turn poor recording sound great.

I would also add, that it is hard to know what the Engineer, producer, artist, etc. was hearing because you weren't in the playback booth hearing the play back on the studio play back equipment. So, it will sound slightly different in your system. most likely, your equipment is much better than what was in the recording/play back booth. The mixing boards may have used ICs or solid state or tube (rare). The potentiometers may be really cheap, etc. You never really know what was used in the recording booth. So you really try to do the best you can to tailor your system to play back music in a manner which pleases you and do your best to try to reproduce the music in as realistic a manner as you can.

enjoy