Quote Originally Posted by Sir Terrence the Terrible
I agree with Richard's assessment. What you are hearing using an audio system is a reproduction coming from the microphone, and the better a signal chain can do it, the more accurate and faithful to the RECORDING it will sound. What we hear in a live setting is binaural, not stereo, not mulitchannel. Multichannel just gets us closer to the live experience with the ability to recreate immersion, and reproduce audio from more points in space. The recording is only a capture from specific perspectives, not an all immersing experience like we get live(except outdoors away from walls).

A good audio chain can make a performer SEEM like they are in the room, and that is what you are looking for with HiFi. With live sound, you are in the room with the performer, and the ear/brain mechanism can easily figure that out. It has to be fooled with a audio recording, and that requires a system to have a high degree of accuracy in relation to the recording reproduction. As far as great imaging, if a recording has it(remember it is a recording with microphones positioned in space), then the audio chain should have enough resolution to reveal it, that is one of the basic tenets of audio reproduction, not live listening.

There are times when you do get some level of pinpoint imaging in live music. Try listening to a outdoor concert in the nearfield, especially acoustical music.
So then is the goal really "to extract every bit of information in the recording", rather than to recreate the live experience?