Hifi, why bother?

[ppppenguin]

So, what he's actually criticising, is the original artist's work. That must be the case: his 'good' amplifiers have been proven to add or subtract nothing (we'll leave loudspeaker discussions for now, as the same applies and these were presumably a constant factor anyway).

This is a very inteersting point. I don't have hard evidence but I'm fairly sure that a lot of pop releases were (still are?) mixed to sound OK on cheap equipment. Dansettes and small portable radios back in the day. As a result they may not sound too good on high quality kit. It was, perhaps still is, common to have a par of small speakers at the mixing desk so the balancer can check his work on something closer to small domestic kit.

I'll repeat Eckersley's comment from c1930: "The wider you open the window the more the dirt flies in". While some of the first generation ADCs were a bit iffy, CD is an essentially transparent medium. What's on the studio master tape is what arrives at the DAC. Compare and contrast with LPs which have various measurable and obvious distortions. So an inferior recording might well be disguised by LP release but rendered horible on CD. Remastering for CD is commonplace. It can be done well or badly. Some of von Karajan's recordings can be a nightmare because he thought he knew the engineer's job better than the engineer himself.

I don't claim any particular expertise but some speakers seem to emphasise faults with the source, other speakers smooth over them. If you're making a recording or broadcast then you want the monitor speakers to show everything. The famous BBC LS3/5A are like that, though it's years since I've heard them. I have a pair of Quad ESL63s. I also listen to a fair number of 78s. I'm surprised (and pleased) at how little fuss these speakers make about the imperfections on 78s. They are audible but not shoved in your face.