The perfect speaker system is indistinguishable from having a live band in the room with you (when blindfolded).
Can today's audio systems do that? How much money do I have to spend to get there?
Can today's audio systems do that? How much money do I have to spend to get there?
Usually you only get some specially-crafted demo files that are capable of fooling you.
I think people overlook how artificial records are. Even the ones that are ostensibly "natural". Records are "hyper real" in that they are usually crafted to give you an ideal perspective of the entire ensemble. In a sense you can hear "everything" or at least hear everything perfectly balanced and crafted with intention. This could be as simple as dynamic control (compression), artificial spaces (reverb), and distortion or saturation that the average listener will interpret as "natural". In that sense it's an illusion.
Again, this is okay.
Even classical records, which often strive for naturalism use these tools to sculpt the record. Even when they do not employ these techniques I've still never heard a classical record that sounds as good as sitting in a hall in front of a world class orchestra. It's unreal how vivid the sound is when you're in the room with the orchestra. It's breathtaking and something that everyone should aspire to experience at least once.
Never heard a SACD but a CD doesn't have the dynamic range of a live symphonic orchestra. And there is the recording equipment charateristics which matters.
My experience is I hanged out with one band in a garage where they were practicing and I attended couple live music shows in pubs.
Main upside of those live music shows is that they are not "perfect" like playing a record and each one of the gigs will be off here or there, tempo somewhere will be off or a tune will be off - or you are just having enough beers you don't care pick your way :)
That's a very different metric. How good the sound is vs. what the sound is.
If you’re in a band and care about sound quality, bring your own mix guy!