I struggled with this for several years and finally came to the conclusion that it's more the recording rather than the equipment that gives you the separation and sound stage. I wondered why all sound engineers didn't record in audiophile quality to make it sound really good...... Then it hit me.... it isn't us the audiophiles who buy the most music.... it's the kids with not so good sounding equipment so they realize they don't need to record for quality. Another possible reason is to cover up the singing quality of quite a few famous singers who really don't sing that well so mediocre recording helps cover that up. When a famous singer has the backup singers singing along with them on most of their recordings, you know that is one.
Is Recording quality the real culprit?
We spend Thousands on trying to improve the sound of what we listen to. But isn’t it really more of a problem that we can’t really overcome, eg. Recording quality? It’s so frustrating to have a really nice system and then to be at the mercy of some guy who just didn’t spend the time to do things better when things were being recorded.
Fortunately many artists make sure things are done well, but so many just don’t make it happen.
It can sound really good but just doesn’t have that Great quality we desire.
So why are we wasting our time spending so much money on audio equipment?