I'm much happier now and all my music collection can be enjoyed for what it is: Recorded music.
Right. Hardly any recordings are trying to be "true to the event" anyway. That would be like an artist with a paintbrush trying to produce a Polaroid.
What we have with recorded music is essentially a lot of different art created by a lot of different artists. It happens to be in an electronic format where a lot of the artistry is performed with microphones and other electronics, all of which is done behind the scenes. As if that wasn't bad enough we make it worse by calling a lot of these artists engineers. This creates the false impression we are dealing with objective reality. Because a bridge or a building, it either stands or falls. A recording on the other hand, it can be a Rembrandt or a Picasso. Hell it can even be a Jackson Pollock.
Too many of us seem to think our job is to make all these different works of art look like a Polaroid. Except of course for the mono guys. They all want Ansel Adams. No wonder everyone is so running neurotically running around trying to make everything perfect. There is no perfect!
How do they display art in a museum? With nice, even neutral lighting. No glare. In a decent size space, enough to get some perspective. We say we visit the museum, but is that really right? I don't think so. I think we visit the art. That happens to be in a museum.
What you really did then, the way I see it, is set your system up to provide just the right amount of lighting and space to enjoy your art. You aren't listening to your system. You are enjoying your recordings. That happen to be playing on your system. To go from being constantly frustrated to consistently satisfied, that tiny little shift in thinking is all it takes.
