I am getting the feeling that some put us hifi owners into two distinct camps, the holier than thou pure music lover and the philistine audiophile who is only interested in sound quality.
Is it just possible that there is both, to differing levels, in all of us?
Discuss.
Absolutely agree. And where we are on that spectrum can vary from occasion to occasion. At least it does for me.
Roger
Agree too.
Iāve been surprised how much SQ there is on records Iāve loved for decades, as Iāve improved my stereo. The less well produced is still great music, so Iām happy.
But very well-recorded bland is stillā¦bland.
Itās what constitutes āblandā where we each make our stand (heyā¦!)
I would sort of agree, except that it is quite possible that it wonāt actually improve the poorest recordings. Here Iām thinking of some of my old recordings that are several generations of recording. They have lost their top end, particularly, added noise and lost some bottom end. Their transients arenāt what they were. They are well within the reproduction capabilities of pretty modest systems, so a better system wonāt improve them (though wonāt add any new noise or distortions, I expect).
This thread reminds me of the old quote from Sir Thomas Beecham: āThe English may not like music, but they love the sound it makes.ā Perhaps not just the English?
Roger
The Absolute Sound has an article this week on their original 1973 principle that audiophiles can only evaluate hifi against a standard of the sound of live acoustic music played in a real space. In the early 70s this would have been irrelevant to me as I only had a transistor radio or cassette player. When I did go to gigs the sound quality was pretty appalling but fun. I canāt imagine that 13 yr old loving music more by having more accurate kit, Iāll never know. I do know I would love to recreate that thrill today, but that ship has sailed and itās not returning through increased investment in audiophile kit. YMMV 
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Nothing wrong with a healthy dose of skepticism and perspective; but keep the glass half full. 
I will!| But I usually wait until 6 PMā¦
I wonder how much of this is due to a subconscious intuition that most music is recorded by the band, live at a venue or in the studio?
I reality I appreciate that a lot of recorded music is painstakingly created by multi-tracking, overdubs, effects, with instrument or vocals parts āphoned inā from anywhere in the world, and that in this context the output from my system cannot be said to reproduce any actual performance of the music in question.
I too like to think of a recording as a sound production. In this respect, the idea of fidelity becomes evanescent. But there are also live in the studio and live in public recordings; these probably need a different approach. What I donāt usually like about live public recordings is that if I have appreciated the complex sound painstakingly obtained in the studio, I expect something comparable on stage, and this usually doesnāt happen. And bands tend to play faster and louder on stage, which destroys the result if you are not among 5000 others, possibly stoned and with any critical mind completely turned off.
I think this is in part a state of mind, and to some extent a choice. I normally just play what I fancy ( The Yes Album as I type). But there are occasions when I just want to see what my glorious system can do. Itās not either orā¦
Yes, Naim excels at reproducing acoustic instruments in concerts.
Naim is not designed to make everything sound ok.
The much greater reality and involvement in those excellent recordings is easily worth the price of alienation from the bad recordings.
Appreciate its all opinion but what doesnāt sound ok?
Early Stones imho!
Are they mono? Funny thing is 60ās classical recordings are some of the best.
But does the amp make any difference?
I listened to a 16/44 version of Led Zeppelin on Qobuz yesterday and didnāt enjoy it.
Maybe because of that version.
Maybe because of overdubbing.
Maybe my taste has changed and I overplayed this LP for a few decades.
Maybe I had a bad curry the night before!
Who knows.
No idea AJK. I am getting into more Stones now, but itās not down to the recording quality. Having said that, some of Sticky sounds quite goodā¦
Suppose the Naim angle is whether they improve every recording even if a bad recording stays bad.
And I think Jimmy Page had lost most of his hearing when he mixed the remasters.
Please tell us more @JimDog. Seems a strange business model for a HiFi manufacturer to adopt.
poorly recorded stuff definitely sounds poorer when played with lesser hifi
As it adds distortion and nasties to nasties