Does 'Accuracy' Matter or exist ?

I think the op has a good point. Perhaps in this business from the perspective of the final listener or equipment reviewer "accuracy" has little value. "Detail" (as in the amount of sonic information or 'bits' revealed), "tone" (as in tone relationships within a piece of music), "timbre", "timing", "attack", etc, all lead to the illusion of a "real" facsimile of a live or studio performance, and are really what we might be trying to capture when we say something is "accurate". In fact, our systems may be very "precise" (as in they reliably produce the same results when fed the same source material), and precisely inaccurate, but if they are "music" to our ears in our room, then it is all good.

From Wikipedia:

"In the fields of science, engineering, industry and statistics, the accuracy of a measurement system is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to its actual (true) value. The precision of a measurement system, also called reproducibility or repeatability, is the degree to which repeated measurements under unchanged conditions show the same results. Although the two words can be synonymous in colloquial use, they are deliberately contrasted in the context of the scientific method.

A measurement system can be accurate but not precise, precise but not accurate, neither, or both. For example, if an experiment contains a systematic error, then increasing the sample size generally increases precision but does not improve accuracy. Eliminating the systematic error improves accuracy but does not change precision.

A measurement system is called valid if it is both accurate and precise. Related terms are bias (non-random or directed effects caused by a factor or factors unrelated by the independent variable) and error (random variability), respectively."

Accuracy cannot be seperated from precision, which is why I mentioned it in my first post. In any case, I would suggest that most of us start out in this hobby trying to reduce systematic errors in an effort to make our audio systems more "valid" starting from the electrical and material sources and ending at our ears. As I have become more experienced and traveled down some blind alleys in what might be considered a pure pursuit of better specifications, and therefore "accuracy", I began to realize there is more to it. Specifications are still important, but not the only thing or the holy grail. I now find myself basing decisions on listening to gear and reading more reviews by people whose taste I generally agree with, and reading less about and into techincal specifications and measures.

The first post and several subsequent have alluded to the fact that at best we can try to faithfully reproduce, at our ear, the sound intended by the original production team, regardless of whether this is actually an "accurate" reproduction of the original performance and recording space. Given that, our systems may reliably reproduce a very detailed version of this original recording that lacks some in presence, or a version rich in the original tone and timbre that may lack some speed and attack. Both of these may be equally "accurate" or "inaccurate" versions of the original, but may appeal to different people who prize those particular attributes in their listening experience.

While it is certainly not a guarantee, I generally feel you are more likely to find all of these desirable listening elements coexisting together (limited of course by what is present in the original recording) along with better measured specificiations in more expensive gear. At the more modest levels (where I tend to shop), how it sounds at home in my listening room is of more value to me than printed specifications that may speak to some greater measure of "accuracy". I do know what I like when I hear it, but it turns out I do not know it very precisely.

All this talk about venue has me thinking about some recent concerts/live events I have attended recently. At the symphony mid-way back on the floor I found myself saying "huh, this sounds ok but I had trouble relating the instruments notes with their spatial arrangement on the stage. At a bar with a small acoustic group playing and singing through a PA system I thought "the music is great but the sound quality is just so, so". Listening at home to an LP I bought from the artists through my decidedly modest system I thought "wow, this is really 'musical,". At a performance artist presentation with a live string quartet plus an electric bass playing off to the right of the stage in an abandoned grocery store, the sound and the music accompanying the dance was "transformational" in composition, performance and sound quality.

Symphony Hall - OK, abandoned grocery store - fantastic? What is going on here? What role does "accuracy" play in this overall evaluation of live versus recorded listening experiences? Was I experiencing the original intent of the acoustic artist in the hotel bar or on her carefully self produced album in my living room?

I have to take away from this discussion and my personal experience that "accuracy" in music performance and reproduction is something to pursue, but dependent in practice on a lot of things that end up being circumstantial, and that it is still more important to know what you like to hear all along the chain from composition to your ear. In that context "accuracy" as a relevant concept in audio is at best a guide, and at worst a fools errand that can lead to faithful reproduction of crap, and who has time or extra aural nerves for that?