The only real problem to solve in Audio, is Attitude

Problem, what problem? Some people might claim that everything is known to made reproduction of recordings as good as one could want - and in one sense they are right. But, if that's the case, why do so many systems, even those which are expensive and lavishly indulged in in terms of time and effort, sound very little like the "real thing", or just downright weird? Of course there are some extremely competent audio systems around, but they're thin on the ground, they stand out as being 'special' when one comes across them!

So, the "problem" is that one can't assemble an audio system from standard, off the shelf components and have it "sound good" - every time. To counter that, my experience over many decades, is that just about every assembly of sound gear, no matter how inexpensive, can be made to come up to, tweaked to an acceptable standard, and with extra effort be evolved into a mechanism that produces highly satisfying audio, and, yes, even conjures ...

What is clear, something recently even more strongly confirmed, is that there is very little desire to think beyond the standard cliches of audiophile think: "it's all about the frequency response"; "loudspeakers are what cripples the sound no matter what"; "huge effort must be put into creating a perfect acoustic environment for the audio equipment"; etc ... but a little thought puts these ideas into better perspective: an actual musical instrument or voice of a person in the room or any natural, non-reinforced sound doesn't require any of these sort of shenanigans, it will still have the impact of the "real thing", every time, irrespective of how casually the sound is produced, and how non attentively one listens to it. And the latter is my experience of competent playback: when it works well there is the same impact as hearing 'natural' sounds, no, absolutely zero, excuses or allowances have to be made for the fact that it is "only a recording" ...

It's easy to see that the attitude of the majority in audio land doesn't echo this thinking at all; firstly by reading what they have to say about things, and secondly by listening to what the vast majority of systems produce, the acoustic end result. Sometimes spectacular in a circus-like manner, often disappointing, irritating, fatiguing, uninteresting to listen to - nearly always sounding like a "hifi system", very rarely they are convincing.

But there is a solution ... just get a few people thinking that there may be a smarter way, which in essence is to view the business of reproducing sound from a recording as a process which has to have minimal flaws in every aspect, every area, to get a worthwhile result. Yes, people worry now about "flaws", but they're usually the 'wrong' flaws - they are of low importance, they matter little in the quest to produce an illusion that the ear/brain combination can believe in ... it's only a shift in attitude that's actually required, to focus on the key flaws that make the crucial difference in the quality of the sound that's heard.