Pertaining to mixing, you want the flattest room and flattest speakers - ideally. Although some will argue about the speakers. If you think about, people will listen to music in all kinds of enviorments and on all kinds of systems. If you could hear your mix everywhere, you could find a happy medium. But we have to make do w/ less than that infininte number of monkees. So most people stick w/ the best system they can use and the flattest room and listen to that mix in other enviroments. Or that is the way I do it. My home system is pretty good - but I drag files down to a "pro" studio, esp. for bass. I also listen to mp3s on my computer here, and on some bookshelf speakers sitting in my living room. And the car. And elsewhere until friends don't answer the door when I stop by w/ a CD. So every room sound different, and every system, and every system in different rooms. You get the idea. But the ear is very adaptive, and you can "learn" how music translates to other places when you "learn" your own room. Not perfectly, but pretty much.
As far as mics, preamps, etc., it is pretty important to remember that the industry was trying to transcribe things perfectly, but feel short. Some of these imperfections became, desirable. The U-47 and similiar mikes, the 1073 preamp, studer tape decks. They were popular and engineers consider them part of the magic of their hits, etc.So capture is more like an art, using the "flavors" these (and other tools) can impart. But remember, the engineers were trying for perfect. A funny story is Neve making a distoritionless EQ. The lab coat guys loved it, the music guys didn't. They wanted some distortion. So he puts some of it back into his stuff, now.
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