can a home system approximate a live performance? That seems to be the most common goal of most here and at other forums (we'll leave HT outta this for now).

If music is recorded in a studio, it is recorded in a sound-proof room with re-verb added after the fact along with performers who may not have been in the same room and sampling from previous recordings and a bunch of other things I'm not even aware of. There are the limitations of the recording equipment, the mixing equipment, the medium, and the reproduction equipment. While the problems recording live music are different, the same limitations apply.

If all of those variables exist, and I spend whatever amount it takes to reproduce the recording perfectly as well as build the perfect listening room which allows the sound to reach my ears exactly as it is reproduced, I will still not hear the sound as it was originally produced.

The futility of it all.