Aah, dynamic range.

Hi-fi just can't cut it. When I visited John Clark's place near Edinburgh earler this year he played his drums that were set up in the corner of a bedroom. It was ear splitting and you felt every pecussive rap or leading edge in a way that no hi-fi on earth could possibly reproduce, not even one sat on lots of....

That's what leading edges are - percussive raps, someone hitting something or plucking a string. What follows the leading edge needs to be kept in proportion, but can this actually be achieved?

Hi-fi is but a set of compromises enabling us to hear music reproduced by electro-mechanical means. There are no absolutes, only compromises.

I'd rather sacrifice a little leading edge to hear the rest of the note (if it is a note) given that the reproduced leading edge is already compromised once it recorded, reproduced electro-mechanically, and is no longer live.