One of the goals I set for my system was to "successfully play any recording of any musical genre regardless of recording quality". My system does that yet is revealling enough to tell the diffrences in cryo treatment facilities of the same model power cord and to be used for Beta testing for a couple high end small audio firms. Of course, a mediocre recording wont sound as good as a great one. However, in a well set up system, great performances will convey the spirit and intensity of the music regardless of recording quality. As system quality goes up it becomes increasingly difficult to achieve this. I've spoken to Sean & Albert Porter about this subject. Mr. Porter has told me that his system can do what mine does (but at a whole different performance level, of course). He also agrees that doing so becomes increasingly difficult as system quality inncreases. After a change and/or addition, it's taken him sometimes a whole month of tuning and tweaking to get the system to perform in such a fashion again.
That, my young (and not so young) padwans, is the real challenge in the audio hobby.
With psychic power and primal intensity,
