If I understand what Bob/Chung/etc are describing, it is a
"specialization model":

The musician specializes in music-making. The recording engineer
specializes in capturing that music-making with minimal change.
Together you end up with the best recording you can get.

This model breaks down in two ways.

First of all, 2-channel recording and playback *necessarily* involves a
change. At the very least, the choice of microphone and mic position,
and choice of speakers, will have a large effect on the sound. So the
*opinions* and *taste* of the recording engineer come into play.

Secondly, let's look at another possible specialization model:

Two chefs work together to prepare a meat dish. Chef A cooks the meat
itself, chef B prepares the sauce.

The problem with this scenario is that the final result isn't
necessarily a cooperation of chefs A and B. The second chef really has
much more power than the first, because by choosing the sauce he can
bring out or obscure whatever he likes in the meat.

Chef A is perfectly entitled, and qualified, to taste the final dish
and say, "You messed it up."

It so happens that a lot of musicians think that analog recording
better preserves their original music-making. That drives the
objectivists crazy because they don't know how to explain it. As we've
seen, the responses we get involve twisting and distorting the original
statements of the musicians.. not once have we ever seen an attempt to
explain the actual statement of the musician. The "explanations" we get
(artificial ambience, compression, etc.) *never* fit the original
statements of the musicians.

Mike