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RE: Putting it bluntly?

" That used to mean high fidelity to straight plain acoustic sound. without multimiking etc, etc, etc, etc."

I'm not sure that it ever did in reality. That objective may have been an aspiration but in fact, aside from a tiny number of specialist recordings, commercial recordings never adhered to a minimalist philosophy. I have recently been replaying some classic Deccas and Living Stereos dating from the time when HiFi was king and which are highly sought after by audio enthusiasts.They are, as one commentator put it, "tricksy". The sound is superficially convincing and very pleasurable to hear. Do these orchestral recordings sound like a real orchestra in a natural acoustic? No, the sound is "better" in an artificial way; oh those glossy, silky strings, as much the product of Neumann microphones and tube electronics as wood, gut or steel and rosin :-).

Record companies try to make great records, not to simply document an acoustic event, and to do it in such a way that owners of more humble equipment than us i.e. the majority, do not return them as faulty because their replay systems cannot cope with a wide frequency and dynamic range.

As far as popular forms of music are concerned the idea of a document rather than a creative construction went out with the later Beatles albums in the mid sixties.

At the end of the day making records is more in the nature an art form than a scientific procedure. We should accept it as such rather than strive after an impossibility.

With the kindest regards,

Pete

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