"I've picked some LP dogs that are so bad, the neighborhood dogs howl. And I don't think that's because of NF or impedance peaks or negative phase angles. Some recorded music just stinks."
No doubt.
Personally in my audio "journey" I have been in places in the past on occasion where few recordings seemed worth listening to. Nowadays, no two sound the same, and some are still barely listenable but the vast majority sound good enough for me to enjoy, especially if one takes pleasure in the variety of sounds a recording might deliver rather than futilely attempting to make them all sound similarly good.
FWIW, I use an ARC tube pre-amp and a Bel Canto Class D amp. There is a lot to be sid about pairing a tube pre-amp with a good Class D amp, if a tube amp is not what the speakers ordered.
So my conclusion is that the devil is in the details and the details are what will swing you one way or the other, for better or for worse.
As the great scholar and musician Frank Zappa once said, "you are what you is". Very true when it comes to recordings.
No doubt.
Personally in my audio "journey" I have been in places in the past on occasion where few recordings seemed worth listening to. Nowadays, no two sound the same, and some are still barely listenable but the vast majority sound good enough for me to enjoy, especially if one takes pleasure in the variety of sounds a recording might deliver rather than futilely attempting to make them all sound similarly good.
FWIW, I use an ARC tube pre-amp and a Bel Canto Class D amp. There is a lot to be sid about pairing a tube pre-amp with a good Class D amp, if a tube amp is not what the speakers ordered.
So my conclusion is that the devil is in the details and the details are what will swing you one way or the other, for better or for worse.
As the great scholar and musician Frank Zappa once said, "you are what you is". Very true when it comes to recordings.