"what is good" is not about accurately reproducing the sound in the theatre or auditorium or studio - that is never what is in the recording in any case.
It is about accurately reproducing what is on the CD, or digital file. And accuracy of that is easily determined - at least in the electronic domain.
I certainly have no problem with the fact anyone has such a goal. It's only when this goal is declared as THE standard of "Good" as if it were objectively so above the goals of anyone else, or what anyone else may consider "good." Or if this goal is implied to have entirely tied up all the messy issues of what we want out of our audio systems.
For instance, the tool of "accuracy" makes sense in the set ups we use in my work, e.g. especially mixing theaters etc which are all constructed with the input of acousticians, pinked for neutral response etc. We want to accurately hear the sound quality of the recordings. But the system being "accurate" doesn't entail we are hearing "good" sound quality. We still must discriminate "good" and "bad" sound so as to "fix" the bad sound. So accurate reproduction of the signal is a useful tool, but it's a means to an end, not the end itself. Our end is in seeking "good sound" (which may or may not be accurate). And the only reason we care about manipulating the sound quality to be "better" is that it means the listener will more likely be hearing "better sound" as a result. In other words, at the listener end, "good" sound is the main underlying reason for why anyone wants "better audio gear." So "good sound" is the thread connecting all this, not "accuracy" in of itself.
So what this tells is is that it is "the quality of the sound" that is the underlying principle. "accuracy" can be a means to that end, but is not the end itself.
If it turns out distorting the original signal "sounds good" then THAT is "good" not simply whether it is "accurate."
Similarly, issues we associate with sound quality are not necessarily encoded in the signal itself. Unless one is perhaps so devoted to the signal integrity he wants to listen in an anechoic chamber, the fact is room reflections - not encoded in the signal - affect the qualitative experience of the sound. We know that certain types of room reflection are often seen as preferable and "sounding better" in tests for sound perception. Again, how would it make sense to declare "No, sorry, that's Just Not Good!" Isn't Good Sound - the subjective impression - ultimately the reason we care about all this in the first place?
Also, remember that all the scientifically designed blind tests regarding speaker preferences that so many rely on here were not about "accuracy to the signal" per se, it was simply asking what type of sound people subjectively prefer. That was the criteria for "Good." It happened that a majority preferred a generally neutral speaker presentation - with some variations. But, again, that still had no one-to-one relationship with "accuracy." That's why many of the test tracks were selected for having Good Sound Quality to begin with. If they selected only crappy sounding recordings that wouldn't be helpful, and it may have been that some of the more colored speakers would have been preferred if they better covered up the unpleasant problems in the recordings.
So this is why I argue that just saying "GOOD IS ACCURATELY REPRODUCING THE RECORDED SIGNAL" may be a definition or criteria one person, or group of people adopt. But it's not the only criteria for "good" and it also doesn't neatly solve all the issues or make sense of the underlying motivations for high end audio in the first place.
