i will leave it to the more philosophically inclined to analyze the principle of trying to accurately reproduce an inaccurate recortding, as compared to editing an inaccurate recording. in both cases, the result is inaccuracy.
MrT. You and many others are missing the point. The idea is not to reproduce a live event - that is not the goal of "accuracy". The reason for pursuing accuracy is so that you can enjoy the music as close to what the artist/producer/sound engineer intended on the media you bought. Often the intent is NOT to recreate a live realistic situation but something even more impressive and involving! Often the intent is to simply create pleasant sound and your CD (which has inherently extremely high accuracy) has already been passed through a myriad of devices and techniques to create desired effects (including deliberately added harmonics from tubes and special microphone placement and mixing techniques). Furthermore the studio which is working on the next CD of your favorite mega successful artist is probably using facilities and gear that are well into seven figures! Worse, every studio engineer is carefully selected by the artists and will put a different "spin" on the work - such as the way Daniel Lanois has heavily influenced albums such as Peter Gabriel's So, Bob Dylan's Oh Mercy and U2's All that you can't leave behind. Why would you not want to experience this work fully? Why would you not want to fully enjoy the famous "gated drum" sound invented by Hugh Padgham ( of Police fame ) and Phil Collins (even if it is not "real" in the purist sense). One of the most famous 'audiophile" albums ever - Pink Floyd's DSOTM only exists as a studio engineered product by the the band and Alan Parsons and more recently re-engineered by Guthrie.
Why then would you want to choose inferior gear that colors the sound and disguises what the studio/label originally heard and issued from their facilities?
What you are proposing is akin to going to an art gallery to enjoy seeing expensive artwork with heavily tinted eye glasses with lenses that are dirty, scratched and distorted and, on top of it, asking the gallery to dim the lights too! Perhaps you prefer everything seen with a yellow or brown tint through distorting lenses with dim lighting - a pleasant atmosphere indeed - but are you actually seeing everything the artist/producer intended - what are you missing when your speakers compress the music dynamics, roll off the bass or "BBC dip" in the midrange?
MrT. It is you and other audiophiles that are missing the point when you compare recordings to 'live music' only as a reference. The fact is the recording studio is an integral part of the overall artistic product. Reproducing realistic live music is just one particular goal of audio reproduction and I enjoy it very much too but it is not the ONLY reason.
Becuase "all audio reproduction" is inherently inaccurate compared to the real live event does not negate the usefulness of accurate audio reproduction. Would you say that accuracy in eye glasses is philosophically pointless because none are quite perfect as 20/20 vision?
