Do we really know what "Live" music sounds like?

Deep experience with anything allows you to make adjustments. If you are at live concerts that are being recorded. Look around. Where is it being recorded from. When ever I go to a concert I look and listen to the acoustics. I look for microphones, the concert control panels. 
 

So many rock and other electronic concerts are screwed up… bad venues, bad volume control. But going to them you can learn.

Going to electrified concerts, like rock concerts, makes you better able to make judgements on equipment when playing recordings of live concerts, but not studio albums.

@coltrane1 

You are correct. You are never going to hear an unamplified rock concert.

‘’Although I listen to all kinds of music, I found it was classical concerts and acoustic jazz was what you needed to listen to to in order to zero in your audio system. It would make other kinds of music sound better as well. This helped me develop an empirical ruler, hence helping all music.

Alternatively if you only liked rock… you could get JBL and try to get yourself into a recording studio to understand how it was mixed.

@axo0oxa

i get your skepticism. But from those of us that have been dedicated to creating a great system to reproduce real music, and to people dedicated to develop systems capable of delivering that sound, an incredible amount of skill can be developed over decades. It is one thing going out and listening to live music in different venues one or twice, occasionally. Then it is very different doing the same hundreds of times over long periods of time.

I have gone to concerts at the Oregon Symphony hundreds of times. They always announce when they are recording for a release. My seats are under the primary microphones. I own a bunch of recordings made there. The acoustics are very predictable and different from my seat as they are above mine. But completely predictable. I have also frequented the Chicago Symphony and many venues, and other cities. You can learn about venues and acoustics. All part of being an audiophile or developing equipment with true passion.

About twenty years ago I started seeking real unamplified instruments in an effort to know what the real thing sounded like. I found an isolated piano here and there… occasionally a little jazz trio. It helped a little. Particularly the piano and drum kit.

Then about ten years ago, I got season tickets to the symphony, 7th row center… where all sounds are unamplified and solo performers were close enough: the sound hole of the violinist or sound board of the piano was pointed directly at my seat. This had a profound effect on the objectives of my system and my upgrades took a big change in direction… for the better. I realized I had a characterization of what music should sound like that was a conflation of memories of rock concerts, systems I had heard when young, and some smaller concerts.

I turned from planar speakers and massive amplifiers to tube electronics and Sonus Faber speakers. All music types sound better with my improving system… while in the past one type might sound better with an upgrade and the rest worse. My system is an order of magnitude more musical and satisfying to listen to. Cymbals sound like brass, and trombones and trumpets have that complex microdetail that makes them so amazing when live. My system still has all the detail it used to, only the detail is not in your face detracting from the full bloom of the mid-range voices and instrument.

Yes, exposure to live un-amplified music is the key to understanding sound and creating an empirical ruler.