Musicians in your living room vs. you in the recording hall?

What’s the difference?

I’m assuming the difference is one system provides all the sonic cues of the recording space and with proper setup of your speakers attempts to recreate that venue.

The other setup pushes sounds more forward, with greater presence and intimacy but at the expense of those smaller sonic cues being overshadowed.

I agree too that the mic’ing is a large determinant of this.

“What’s the difference?”

The difference is that a setup where the room has a significant effect on the sound will always have some room influence - and this will always have some impact.

A good setup will present the recording space as presented on the recording. In many live recordings this will be the venue or for studio or close miked recordings it will tend to sound as if they are in your room or in front of you.

Phase accuracy, listener and speaker placement is important. In smaller spaces the best place to sit is near field in order to minimize the room.

For me, it all depends on the mood which in turn drives the content at that time. And in both cases, unfortunately I can tell the compromises that are made by the quality of my system and the room.