The Book of Audacity

The Myth That Someone Else Knows Better Than You

For the most part, fussy audiophiles are fussy about all the wrong things. There are two categories of people who can teach you actual useful knowledge, and those are musicians and recording engineers. I mean real musicians and real recording engineers, not wannabes who think that when the knob goes to 11 it means the amp is louder than amps that go to 10. Recording engineers are just as much artists as engineers, and even mediocre ones can teach you a lot about the nuts and bolts of making recordings.

It takes practice, experimentation, and a lot of listening, and the ultimate decision about what is good is entirely yours. You have to learn to train your own ear and taste and not depend on what ...