- The best preset is often not dependent on your system but rather on the material. Therefore, you can't just buy one preset that you love and leave it always on. As the material changes, you may need a new preset which will cost you another $25. Perhaps there could be a way to package all presets together, or at least three or four to give you give coverage for rock/folk/classical/EDM.
I'm so glad to have more and more people thinking seriously about OOYH. It is a cutting edge technology, and therefore disorienting. We'll all benefit from serious discussion.
For my part, I happen to think that the best preset is firstly about your system, then about genre. I built my current system thinking of OOYH presets as another component to match for synergy. The presets vary wildly, in terms of soundstage presentation, tonal spectrum, etc. They have to differ, because all the sampled equipment and rooms vary in every sonic metric. So I had to match the virtual amp, speaker, room with my real DAC, amp, phones, cables, treating them as if they were real. It's not so unlike using a tube amp to warm up a cold analytic set of phones. The complexity only gets compounded by the fact that certain emulations work better than others because of HRTF and psychoacoustic factors.
I think the suitability of the resulting system for different genres of music is then no different from the fact that some equipment is just better with certain genres than others. So I want to get the OOYH effect right first, then match preset to genre. For example, some presets have much more bass which would make it better for those "drop the bass" genres. But, it the preset doesn't work well with my system (including my mind), if it sounds off, overly bright or muffled, etc. I wouldn't use it.
I definitely match presets to genre, but that's a second order function for me. I have a few presets that are just stunningly good in my system and "in my head." From there, just like in any real world system, there are trade offs. The preset with larger scale and more low end has less detail, that fits soundtracks for me. Another has smaller soundstage and less bass, but greater transparency and articulation, that's my jazz/acoustic preset. I love OOYH for this. It may cost $25/preset, but it's far cheaper and easier than switching real phones/speakers, amps, etc. Not being able to just set it and "leave it" is, to my mind, one of the wonderful things about OOYH.
Personally, I would love to hear your musings, theoretical and practical!