I feel really sorry for audiophiles because they have to spend lots of money on expensive equipment to eliminate the perceived shortcomings that the rest of us are not troubled by during our enjoyment of music.
There is plenty of music that you wouldn't even get to enjoy if you didn't invest in some higher-end equipment and made some effort to improve your listening environment, because you wouldn't be able to hear it at all: the opening of Schnittke's Symphony No. 3 in the BIS recording, Nono’s Prometeo, Ligeti’s Cello Concerto as I mentioned above, most of Knaifel’s music issued on ECM or several of that label’s Pärt recordings, etc. That is music of extremely pianissimo dynamic. And no, you can’t just turn the volume up, because if you did that, the loud parts that come later would blow out your ears: you have to have a listening environment and responsive speakers that are capable of representing the whole dynamic range of the recording.
