Is Recording quality the real culprit?

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.

@feldmen4 , I was totally  unaware of Sharon.  I guess I'll have to order a copy.  I discovered the Junkies rather late (right after Natural Born Killers came out on VHS) and then I bought everything I could find by the CJ.  Which at that time ended at Crescent Sun Pale Moon.  at that time there was one song on Caution Horses that really really got me--Sun Comes Up It's  Tuesday Morning, but the reast of the CD was never my favorite.  At that time Black Eyed Man was always on my playlist when ever I fired my system up.  Southern Rain was like my reference song when I was auditioning new equipment.

As far as WOEN and Trinity, the SACDs are sublime.  They are works of art.

Anyway, thanks for the heads up on Sharon.  It is now on my list, and it is a short list.

As long as you take a passive approach to music reproduction through your system, then yes. You are stuck with the sound quality baked into the source. My approach to music listening is more reactive, so I do what I can to compensate for poor productions of great performances by expanding the dynamic range of overly compressed material, adding room tone back into overly dry recordings, restoring the bottom octave of commercial releases that have had it whacked out to "fit" the medium, etc.

No, all this manipulation doesn't make a crummy recording sound as great as a truly well-produced release, but it does improve my enjoyment of it, and that's my goal. Before I start catching a ration of shite about altering the musician's intent, let me remind everyone that most release approvals are phoned in, so the musicians rarely have any idea of how the end product actually sounds.

@asvjerry 

Interesting about AI influence on recordings.  is another aspect of AI going to be how it will influence Recording sessions? Since no one really understands AI, probably too early to know but no doubt it will become more common with what we listen to in addition to all the musical aspects of it, and now it's the Recording studio influence.

Maybe AI Will help design better speaker crossovers. And DSP Control of Systems.  Currently I can't stand DSP interfaces being so difficult to work with.

I’m basically done with having put together my system. At this point, I buy the best quality recordings that I can find, and try not to worry about the gear anymore.