Does Your System Sound Like the Real Thing?

This is the ultimate question and the answer for me has
always been "of course not". But, it's not what I expect.
Just like sex, music is more in the mind than the body.
If that weren't true, any music reproduction
system would be worthless.

I would like to set up an experiment where musicians
play live from behind a curtain, then live from a remote
location with the sound reproduced using the best mics,
amps, cables, and speakers behind the curtain.
I bet ANYONE could tell the difference.

In my experience, the part of music reproduction that
causes the most "damage" is the recording itself.
This was made clear to me many years ago,
and often since, while listening to radio.
WFMT (a fine Chicago radio station!) was playing
recorded music, as usual, but then switched to a live,
non-recorded performance from their studios. The
change in the quality of music reproduction was immediately
apparent. I've listened carefully to the difference
between live, non-recorded music and recorded music in
any medium (tape, LP, direct-to-disc, CD, HDCD, SACD)
and non-recorded music certainly comes closest to real.

TJ