Thoughts on the most difficult instruments for speakers to reproduce?

I'd say a familiar voice recorded in the same location as it's played back. No futzing around with the sound via EQ and with all of its dynamics intact. 

This should also be easy enough to record and demonstrate on playback.

Slip on a blindfold and you can play 'Is it real or a recording?

I once witnessed at a show where a female vocalist was accompanied by a solo piano. The aim was not to show off any speakers but how accurately you could record live onto an SD card of all things.

I wish I'd paid more attention  (I didn't like the equipment being used) but I remember there was a difference between live and the recording but it was tiny - a hint of less depth and space.

Failing that you could try any familiar piano or violin recording which hasn't been overly bleached out with the usual proviso that it be a fairly clean and natural recording.

None of your multiple splicing editing or EQ tricks. 

If any exist.

@mlsstl ,

'Given all of this, I am not surprised that I find most recordings mediocre and some downright bad. It is almost a miracle that a few recordings out there are extraordinary. There really is an art to the process that not every recording engineer and producer possesses.'


Sadly true.
But not surprising in what is after all a profit driven industry. 

If we're talking about recording a human voice then I'm betting that even a smartphone could do an adequate recording of it for our comparison purposes.

I've played back home movies made on a Sony digital camera and the sound was wonderfully uncompressed - in the way you might expect live sound to be but usually isn't - not even on live albums!

As for the voices of family and friends, they were uncannily real in a way that TV or Radio ones with the usual added bass rarely are.