The closest approach...really

Hello Newbee,
Your lines, which follow below have warmed my heart, because they are so close to what I have learned in my early years:

"I gained most of my appreciation of live music in the first five rows of Orchestra Hall near center because I perferred the balance of sound there BUT mainly because I could hear instruments with great specificity, minimal halls sounds other than bass reinforcement."

And:

"What has impressed me was what is natural vs what is artificial. Natural is tight/crisp sound with correct timbre, little affected by room acoustics. That it is not artificially bright, something that so often occurs in audiophile speakers, electronics, or associated stuff, when the manufacturers are trying to replicate the natural clarity of the live performance by 'inhancing the apparent detail' in a recording and/or audio equipment."

I've suffered through practically similar problems as you did until through TAS I tried the Jadis electronics with my ELS and was happy for a very long time, let my Abo for TAS run out, but wanted more dynamics than my beloved Quads were able to afford. I then went wild, experimenting with a whole array of stators, got better dynamics, but screwed up all staging of course. Then my fortunes changed and I sold it all. It was a relief and I kept on going to concerts. When fortunes changed again I finally knew what I wanted and how to get it. I chose carefully and no longer convulsively and I solicited the ears of what Mr.T called my committee, friends, musicians, afficionadoes and like you, I am happy now. So looking back, that hiatus which was so suddenly forced upon me was a stroke of luck. Perhaps, to paraphrase your words, it cured me of audiophilia and brought me back to where I belong in the first place, to music.

Thanks Newbee for your great post. In letting your lines sink in, I feel I must retract my previous statement: You are a music lover , whose dose of audiophilia is but a means to this end. I hope the same will be true for me until my ears turn deaf for good.

there is one "fly in the ointment". that is the recording.
recording quality varies. if one is trying to attain a semblance of natural timbre, one has to carefully select recordings, as benchmarks.

since the sound of recordings is unknown, the best one can do is listen to a bunch of recordings on many stereo systems and make a selection based upon the results of all of the listening sessions.

essentailly the stereo system and recording is evaluated, not just the stereo system. if one "tunes" one's stereo systems based upon a group of recordings, it is possible that one may not achieve the realism attained from the reference recordings when listening to "non" reference recordings.

Mrtennis
LOL, you are so right and there are many more flies in the ointment: Changes in humidity, temperature,the grid, your own well being just to mention a few fat ones.
Strangely enough though, and I wonder if Newbee would not agree with this, after your rig has reached that level of satisfaction, we spoke of above and after listening to a lot of various software (LP,CD,r2r,music server, whatever), the quality of a recording does not matter that much anymore. Having finally reached contentment with your set up you listen to music, not to the rig and if the rig suddenly draws your attention away from the music, generally something is wrong, either with you or with the rig which has to be addressed. I have never really consciously "tuned" my system to specific recordings, but tried to tune it to what my ears told me was more or less right with a lot of different software with all kinds of music and of course have found ways in time to compensate, with the choice of specific gear, just as Newbee seems to have done, for recording flaws, which I found irksome and which distracted from the performance.

>>there is one "fly in the ointment<<

You don't know how right you are.

Interesting discussion. While I can understand the pursuit of best sound reproduction available (within the constraints of your budget if you have one) what I can't understand is how does one know when the pinacle has been reached and that further pursuit is merely a fine tuning to ones taste? We all know that absolute fidelity to the real thing is impossible, but we really don't know how close you can get.

A recording studio engineer has the luxury of hearing live music nearly everyday and then hearing the same music reproduced on a system. The equipment choices and acoustically tailored studios of these folks are probably most indicative of a "pinnacle" in sound. I agree that home audio enthusiasts don't stand much of a chance and probably end up with something tailored to their taste. However, you can find out what pros use and select gear accordingly rather than the latest models appearing in the audio rags (still many choices but ALL highly regarded pro gear will at least have been "vetted" by many professionals/musicians).