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Sugarite
 
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Default Spinning my wheels...to preamp or not? (DAC directly to amp?)

A recording engineer's responsibility
ends at the audio media. It is the audiophile's job to present the

recorded
material in such a way that the sounds perceived are most desireable to
themselves. The assumption of neutrality being ideal in this matter is
naive. It's an entertainment system, not a laboratory.

Back in the early sixties, recording engineers and producers of top 40

rock and
roll would enhance the recordings to make it sound better on the sort of

equipment
95% of the kids owned back then. Portable record players and radios using
hot chassis circuits (using tubes like the 50C5 and 4 inch speakers). Or

the kids
used the console TV/radio/record player in the living room.

Radio station program directors like Rick Sklar of Musicradio 77 WABC

would,
with the engineers, tweak the sound processing of the music (compressors

and such)
to sound good on transistor portable radios, AA5 table radios and such.

What
most listeners used. He had examples of these radios in his officce and

would
listen to see if the station sounded good from them.

So recording engineers taylor the sound to fit the playback equipment they
expect most of their customers to use. Of course checking to be sure the
material will still sound reasonable on a good system as well.


So... we should all just use typical stereos?

Read what I said again:
"It is the audiophile's job to present the recorded material in such a way
that the sounds perceived are most desireable to themselves."

That means taking such recording methods into account, or avoiding them,
whatever does it for you. Again, neutrality accomplishes nothing to that
end. Unless you record your collection yourself, you can't make unilateral
adjustments to accommodate anything but your own ears, which are themselves
not neutral.