Well, as someone who's been on both sides of the glass as a musician and as an engineer, I can only offer this…
"Sounding as good as possible" is relative to the individual. Sometimes it means "as close as possible to the original signal with as little artifacts as possible". Sometimes it means "as dynamically constricted as possible with hard-clipping for maximum horns-in-the-air factor".
Most artists I know deeply care about how their music is presented to the world, but not all of them share the same values of production and reproduction. Some drummers change heads every take, and some leave them on until the coating is gone and there's pitts all through the head. Some have an incredible appreciation of how an instrument is crafted and how tone is reflected in that craftsmanship, and some use the cheapest, most generic piece-of-crap available straight off the shelf. Some will ask for certain monitors to be brought in for mixing and some will sit in their car with a reference disc and ascertain the mix based on that. Some have "respectable" hi-fi systems and some play their collections through systems where they don't even realise the left speaker is out of phase and the right speaker has no tweeter output.
For most of them, the driving motivation is to create art that communicates something profound about who they are as creative entities, and perhaps, something about the world around them that is given a unique voice through their vision and insight. I'd imagine it's over-simplifying it, but as a descriptor of most artists I know it's what they strive for with each release most of the time.
In my experience, how successful they are in that endeavour is only sometimes measured in critical and commercial success. For the ones I know it's usually realised in that individuals self-perception over time as they develop as an artist and continue to release work.
But it's almost never measured by the ultimate sound quality of the final master and how it's represented to an audiophile-centric audience who've fetishised the process at the expense of the content.
Thanks for the well written and well thought out post. Much appreciated.
Your post mirrors my experience too.
I will say this...I don't think ultimate sound quality is strictly relative to the individual. I think there are universally
excepted standards of constitute a good recording and mastering. Dynamic range, overall tonal quality etc.
There are recordings in rock and pop that are considered monumental because not only is the music brilliant, but the
sound draws you in. I have heard albums recently where I LIKED the music, but was repelled by the production. This was not
some audiophile tight ass rejection of modern sound, it was just a brittle, uninvolving sound. A few that come to mind are the last album
by the Cult, the last album by Coldplay, and a recent release by Patti Griffin. A shame that these artists presented their work in
an impenetrable fortress of compression and screeching EQ choices.
I totally understand some of the loathing that folks in the music production business feel towards audiophiles. Much of it is warranted,
but..not all of it.
Roy Halee, one of the great producers of our time, used to shop at the same place I did in New York for gear. He has incredible
system at home. Rick Rubin and Henry Rollins are both audiophiles, as is Steve Hoffman and Bob Ludwig.
I think the frustration music production folks feel towards this small group is many of them really know nothing about music,
but love sound. I have had several experiences of visiting audiophiles with uber systems who had 200 CDs, never heard of
of 90% of the music I brought over, and would pull out the typical percussion and female vocal demo tracks.
That does not mean all of us are like this. I know some audiophiles who are musical encyclopedias as well.
