All good discussions above and all but what Mc's original contention or question is that on a PARTICULAR recording (be it a $1000 or Strads or Guarneris)., well matched high end best systems should bring out all three pretty much just like it sounded live while being recorded. We know that more likely than not they don't.
Why is that? And many reasons are mentioned above- diff speakers type, diff amps, diff type sources and many many variables.
But If all the systems claim to be reproducing the absolute sound they are all wrong because 1) none sounds like the other and 2) none sounds like the real thing. (caveat: rare systems do come real close in absolute sense, but not exactly though)
Agree with Mc's idea of testing recording live vs reproduced in high system back to back if you have unlimited funds ( like Bill Gates) and experiment and really find out who and where the culprit/s lies. It may come to the state of current recording technology or it come to speakers limitations and anything in between. But it is clear some research needs to be conducted rather than same old same old and leading folks to spend enormous amount of money and on wild goose chases.
When I was audiophile novice I did hear such claims of experimentation where they ( e.g My own favorite speaker manufacturer- Dunlavy) were auditioning recorded , say a live real piano in between speakers and then playing same recording and switching back and forth. I never heard these type of demos ever myself but how good was the comparison? Any one knows first hand?
Once again I do maintain the fact the there are rare systems that do give you many glimpses or comes close to the real thing. ( and I am sure all of us would raise our hands to say my system does that) But the fact that like OP asks, many so called best systems do not ( on the contrary quite the opposite in some cases).
Why can't we accept the fact that our technology is not yet space age and will never will be.
Back to regularly scheduled programming and circular arguments ;-)
