Obvious to many people (including me) who listen to music produced by natural instruments in the intended venue (e.g., symphony hall or opera house) - with no electronics involved. Examples include classical music and opera. People who regularly attend live classical music performances – in the intended venue - know what a violin sounds like. We know what a string quartet sounds like. We know what a large-scale orchestra sounds like. We know what opera sounds like when performed live in an opera house that has good acoustics – and no PA system (or sound reinforcement system) is used. (Obviously when a symphony orchestra performs the National Anthem at the baseball park, a PA system must be used. That is NOT what I’m talking about.)
I don’t give a rat’s patootey what the recording engineer wants. For the music I love, the recording engineer(s) or producer(s) aren’t the composer, conductor, or musician – they don’t create the art – their job is to capture the performance as faithfully as possible.
Perhaps things are different for pop music. Based on what I’ve read - for some pop music - producers and engineers largely use electronics to blend together multiple sounds – some generated by synthesizers – some generated by different musicians in different studios at different times - to create a “song”. For this type of music, who is to say what the song is supposed to sound like? Apparently the only people who can say for sure are those who were in the recording studio listening to their electronically cobbled together song on some studio monitors.
For classical music, acceptable to people who know what live classical music sounds like.
For live music, the venue affects the sound of the original performance. Again – for the music I like – the engineers aren’t creating the music – the composer, conductor, and musicians are – and the venue (i.e., the concert hall) affects the overall sound.
The “gear” that is involved in creating classical music are instruments such as violins, violas, trumpets, etc.
Apparently for some pop music, the “song” is not created in a real space (i.e., a venue), but rather is created via some electronic mixing console (whether that be hardware or software). I confess I don’t know what a mixing console (or synthesizer) is supposed to sound like.
I agree with "garbage-in/garbage-out".