It all has to do with “How one hears” and that is tied in with “the purpose of listening”.
For me, since about the age of ten, music –starting with the Beatles, The Doors, Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Lovin’ Spoonful, Bubble Puppy, The Mothers of Invention, Yes, Emerson Lake and Palmer, Gentle Giant, Jethro Tull and Genesis (Peter Gabriel era) became my best friend. Listening to music gave me EVERYTHING… comfort, excitement, inspiration, education, research, wonderment and above all, along with paintings– gave me a great idea of what the potential of a human being could offer.
First I saw that composers do not want to hear wrong notes in a song, then I proceeded to learn about tones and frequencies.My small plastic stereo I had when I was 10, did not sound as full, loud, present and clear as the wooden KLH stereo (turntable, amplifier and speakers) I got when I turned 13. In 1996 at Bear Creek Studio I was shocked and truly burst out laughing when I heard my singer Anna Mercedes sing thru their AKG C24 microphone. In my basement I had recorded her with my standard Shure SM57, which sounded cool to me, but in the studio with THAT microphone, she sounded like Ella Fitzgerald being recorded in the best studio in New York City in 1953!! Jaw dropping difference in tone quality and “magic”.
Technology changes rapidly. At one point electric guitars were newfangled, and some people didn’t want to “go there”. Nowadays we have Youtube, Spotify, Tidal, Vinyl records, CD’s and cassettes all being sold and consumed like CRAZY— in higher numbers than ever before.
Producers, mixing engineers and mastering engineers all NEED and WANT to be abreast of these changes so that their “products” can sound as good as possible. The actual standards of loudness and dynamics have changed! and there are plug-ins and written articles that help us deal with that. For a while we had the “loudness wars” where everyone was trying to make the loudest possible final product, so that it would make the song that came after it sound “weak” and “small”. Now Spotify and the rest “turn down” loud masters and “turn up” quiet ones. They use automated algorithms to do it, and some of us would rather have it correct to begin with instead of allowing those platform’s algorithms to make decisions about the volume and dynamics of our music.
I listen to music on my iphone and laptop and it sounds fine. I listen on my good Hedd Type 20 mixing speakers and music sounds extremely well, and when I go to the Funky Junk Shop in London I listen to all my favorite music on their ATC SCM25a speakers and the high range and midrange sound better that I have ever heard (the bass is painfully lacking for my tastes/desired tho!) Those speakers are $10,578 USD per pair, and Im not likely to get them unless my fortunes upgrade significantly.
In short, the world of music and sound are– in fact, infinite. Also it’s worth noting that music / audio and sound all have the capability of bringing great joy and satisfaction into the lives of humans.