Neutral electronics are a farce...

Those damn Yamaha NS10s are everywhere, and Auratones (!) are still around, to mix singles for Radio play (they sound like car speakers). I've been seeing Tannoys in studios lately, but never, ever, audiophile type loudspeakers. Pros use a completely different kind of speaker, and EQ to make music sound "good" on them. Wonder why their recordings played back on your home speakers sounds "wrong"?!

Some studio consoles are excellent and others not so good.

I do a lot of listening on Grado headphones; they are trustworthy.

We built up 6 channels of vacuum-tube microphone preamps which are wired directly into the tape machines- no intervening mixer console; no EQ, nothing but the mic. Our monitors are made by High Emotion Audio and are very fast and revealing. I don't think there is any Yamaha gear in the entire recording chain...

^^^ ... I agree bgp24.  

The proof of what you're saying is when you hear a CD that's been ripped right off of the master tape with no added digital reverb and very little or no EQ. Just a flat recording one step from the original source. When you hear a great CD like that, one can clearly hear how so many of the recording engineers really foul things up. Totally unnecessary too. Amazing. 

I've done a little mixing, some with Yamaha NS-10s.  I think of them as a critical-listening speaker, not a listening-for-pleasure speaker.  I'd be curious to hear from the pros as to whether that's a valid distinction.
I know one thing:  when I'm testing a mix it sounds different on every single system I try.  It's maddening.

I am another believer in recordings are the first thing to blame when sound is not good in a hifi system. And i believe they are 90% good to great in actuality . There is no way in hell big record labeles are putting out crappy sounding records . Can you imagine the producers , studio engineers , execs doing a listening session before release and the sound making their ears bleed from crappy sound . Then they tell the record execs  "don't worry it will it will sound better on a car radio" . nonsense i say