Paul6001,
I was new here not so long ago too. I liken the experience to being a bride’s guest at a wedding where most of the other guests are the groom’s family - and they drink too much and bicker over dinner and end up having a fist fight in the car park. Like that bride’s guest, it is better to watch, not join in.
On your points - I think there are many engineering choices to be made when processing digital information, especially when making the first capture of analogue sound and also when converting it back. There are loads of engineering choices too when the storage medium is a spinning vinyl disc. We hear replicas of the original sound. It is an illusion. The recording engineers, mastering, encoding, and decoding are choice-maker at every stage. You are hearing their choices when things sound different.
Your listening - if I was you, I’d put together a headphone system for personal listening. Use Roon to benefit from crossfeed filters. Seems like in your NY apartment you will struggle to have a listening room and a living room in the same space. So don’t try. Headphones for personal listening, and some easy listening omni-directional room-filling, guest-pleasing speakers for social listening. I’m a fan of back-loaded horns because wherever you and guests sit in your room everyone gets a lovely listen.
Now, see you soon in the car park where we can watch some of the old boys take their jackets off and start swinging - and missing.
I was new here not so long ago too. I liken the experience to being a bride’s guest at a wedding where most of the other guests are the groom’s family - and they drink too much and bicker over dinner and end up having a fist fight in the car park. Like that bride’s guest, it is better to watch, not join in.
On your points - I think there are many engineering choices to be made when processing digital information, especially when making the first capture of analogue sound and also when converting it back. There are loads of engineering choices too when the storage medium is a spinning vinyl disc. We hear replicas of the original sound. It is an illusion. The recording engineers, mastering, encoding, and decoding are choice-maker at every stage. You are hearing their choices when things sound different.
Your listening - if I was you, I’d put together a headphone system for personal listening. Use Roon to benefit from crossfeed filters. Seems like in your NY apartment you will struggle to have a listening room and a living room in the same space. So don’t try. Headphones for personal listening, and some easy listening omni-directional room-filling, guest-pleasing speakers for social listening. I’m a fan of back-loaded horns because wherever you and guests sit in your room everyone gets a lovely listen.
Now, see you soon in the car park where we can watch some of the old boys take their jackets off and start swinging - and missing.