Back in the day, I remember listening to a system in my local audio store. It was back when CDs were coming on the scene. Anyway, the salesman was playing Flim and the BBs, "Tricycle." I was blown away by this recording. I was so impressed that I bought a copy for myself to play on my low-fi SAE receiver through my mid-fi AR speakers. Played on my system, the CD didn't have the slam, dynamics, and sound stage that the system in the stereo shop produced but the CD was still an enjoyable listen time after time after time. Thirty years later, I use that same CD to test systems today. The point being, I learned gorgeously recorded music can make modest systems sound better than usual while making superior systems sound sublime.
Isn't it really about quality of recording?
Are most of us just chasing our tails?
I mean you listen to a variety of recordings and some sound a lot better than others. Your system has limited impact on how good recordings can be. I am awestruck how some music sounds and clearly my system has nothing to do with it, it all occurred when the music was produced.
We talk about soundstage and imaging and I am not sure all the effort and money put toward a better system can really do that much for most of what we listen to because the quality is lesser than other recordings.
You can walk into a room and hear something that really sounds good and you say wow what an amazing System you have but no!!! It's the recording dummy not the system most of the time. Things don't sound so good it's probably the recording.
The dealers don't wanna talk about Recording quality no one seems to want to talk about it and why is this? Because there's no money to be made here that's why.