Beer and audio

There are 217 craft brewers in the state of Colorado. We're 4th in the country. One of the qualities I admire in craft brewing is identical to that which I value most in a high-end audio design engineer. Craft. Craft refers to a set of specific earned skills that fit a particular task. The definition of the task describes the type of beer as well as the quality of your audio system. If we define the type of beer we want as "consistently pleasing the largest number of people" we'll likely be talking about larger commercial enterprises like Budweiser and Coors. Change the description to "new, interesting, unique tastes" and we're suddenly in the realm of craft. If we define the type of audio we want as "consistently pleasing the largest number of people" we will likely be talking about a receiver, a wireless speaker, a commercially acceptable mass market product. This work is best performed by a skilled design engineer relying on his meters rather than his ears. If, on the other hand, we wish to "capture every nuance of the recording, and faithfully reproduce the producer's intent" we will need a design engineer that understands craft; the art of knowing which course to take that achieves the goal within the constraints handed to him or her. Design engineers share many of the same skills and tools, but true high-end craftsmen add ears to meters. Unfortunately, fewer and fewer understand craft, the kind that gets us what we want.