I am pretty deluded and very disappointed but not with my HIFI. I've been to two Los Lobos concerts the first at the zoo (outside) was the second best I've ever attended. My most recent was the second worst I've ever attended. The sound guy must have been deaf. The amps were over driven into distortion, The mix was terrible and the vocals piercing and I was pretty much unable to distinguish the words. I ended up stuffing my ears with tissues just to be able to stay in the hall. If my stereo sounded like that I would have it in for repair.
The night before at dinner there was a trio female singer, Ubase and guitar which actually sounded pretty good. It was correctly amplified and sounded good. My stereo is pretty close to that. I need to work on tightening up the bass but it doesn't take all that much to reproduce amplified music. Good quality HIFI amps and speakers are usually better sounding than pro audio and the studio microphones used in recordings are usually better than the ones used for live performances.
For the live experience I just have to delude myself that their are people behind me either sing along or talk during the performance.