I can agree with that. However, I do not want to overlook the fact that these are the people who ultimately have the final say on the tonality and overall sound. Nothing is more accurate than the master recording itself, and if some mastering engineers prefer listening to music on systems that add coloration through vinyl, tube amplifiers, or horn-loaded speakers, I think that validates how important those qualities can be to some people who truly enjoy music.
As someone who you're having a debate about...
Count me in. I've never had such a good sound quality in all systems in the house since changing to accurate studio monitors (K&H, Genelec, Neumann). And for those who do not like neutral speakers: you have to try them for some time! It takes time for the human hearing to adapt to another type of sound, and if you're used to a colored sound it takes to time to appreciate a neutral sound. Afterwards you don't want to go back.
Taunus Sound ... sigh ... made me to leave these producers. But they recovered, not?
What @Ropeburn said above.
Nobody has any problem with this. The reality is that they don't stop there. They always do one of two things, both of which are denialist:
This reveals a gross misunderstanding of what a mastering engineer is and does.
I guess it depends on what you are trying to get out of the hobby. My enjoyment of music comes from the feelings it creates and from being genuinely wowed by the sound. You may be trying to make your system measure as closely as possible to a target curve that was developed and commercialized to make money by averaging what groups of people selected in blind studies as sounding "the best."
You make it seem like an accurate speaker cannot create feelings and genuine "wow" moments.
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The fact that the majority of these studies were originally funded by public dollars and not by commercial entities notwithstanding, this sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Opinions stripped of as much bias as possible are often the only opinions worth paying attention to. And lo and behold, most people in such studies have been found to prefer accuracy to a clearly colored signal.
I would say that the greatest qualities of music come from the composition, the musician, the musicianship which often includes improvisation, the recording including venue, the mastering and then the playback equipment which is far down the list when compared those other things. But here's the deal my subjective attachment to those higher order things are my feelings that can not be controlled or shared if there is not a common constructs in which to share them. At ASR that construct is the measurement of the quality of the stored signal coming out of the transducer. We can argue Beethoven's 9th vs 6th all day and both be right. Having the most accurate playback is part means not the end of the enjoyment. Most of us here have vast collections that we passionately curate and are not designing audio gear. Your supposition that we are not music lovers first is flawed and would argue that it is that engagement that makes us want the best of the best, like any enthusiast.
Infact the ideal, perfectly accurate speaker-room system goes from 0.0001 Hz upwards perfectly flat, at zero distortion and unlimited SPL. Let's say "good enough" is doing that up to human hearing pain threshold.You make it seem like an accurate speaker cannot create feelings and genuine "wow" moments.
