What is a good tweak?

[E-Stat]

If the minimalist philosophy was the predominant way of thinking, there would be no market for this type of equipment. It's popularity grew out of experience and the needs of recording engineers.

The popularity of massive mixing consoles grew with the rise of popular music (99% of the market) and the needs of quick and cheap ways to record. Let's fix everything after the fact. Unlike classical and other purely acoustical venues, most popular music has no real concept of "live". Mix it however you please. Take dozens of close up slide pictures of the instruments and view them all simultaneously. Everything is there with no perspective.

The engineers specify what they need to get the job done well enough to compete. And among the end users of classical recordings at least, they want a product which is as accurate as possible in the sense of being a documentation of what a performance sounded like or would have sounded like had they seen it live in a favorable seat.

Ok.

All of the added microphones and tweaks are there and used in the service of that end.

For some, yes. I aver that the very best recordings (not necessarily performances) never go for that hokey stuff. I refer you again to a host of recordings outside your experience. Maybe some day you will find out what I am talking about.

rw