With apologies to our friends at the magazine....
The idea of a perfect sound is comforting—but it’s fiction.
I’ve spent the last fifty years chasing the goal of accurate reproduction. Like many audiophiles, I believed there was some absolute reference out there—some “true” version of every recording that we were all working toward. But the deeper I got, the more I realized: there is no absolute.
Only perspectives.
Every recording is a set of decisions. Microphone choice, placement, EQ, reverb, compression—all of it shapes what we hear. Even in a classical recording, where the goal is realism, you’re still dealing with choices: where the mics are placed, what hall it’s in, which take is used.
And then there’s the listener’s side of the equation. Your room, your gear, your ears. No two systems sound alike, and no two people hear alike. So what are we really chasing?
To me, the answer is emotional truth. If you’re drawn into the performance—if the music feels alive, human, and convincing—then it’s working. That doesn’t mean it’s “neutral,” or perfect, or high-scoring on a measurement chart. It just means it connects.
So I’ve let go of the idea of a single reference. What I aim for now is something simpler: to be moved.
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