Do we really know what was heard in the recording studio? Mastering studio?
Not sure live performances/instruments are too helpful for end listeners building systems. While there are certainly benefits to hearing un-amplified live, there seems little gained in correlating the two. I guess he's alluding to the often used system evaluation, "that sounds live."
His point: "....In short, you need to know what music sounds like if you're going to try to effectively reproduce it." I disagree. Maybe for recording engineers.