Home HiFi better than Live?

I think the biggest misunderstanding here is that studio recordings are accurate to what was played by the musicians.
Everywhere along the line choices are made by the people in the studio, beginning with the microphone and then working back to the tape that is actually recorded. Every choice affects what is ultimately heard on the playback medium. Even recordings as good as say, Sheffield Labs are a series of the best possible compromises. What then can we assume to be accurate???
The music that was played by the musicians is not what we end up with when we buy thier album so how could home HiFi be considered to sound better than live? Mixing boards, multitrack downsizing from 20 channel to two channel stereo, 20 bit recordings being taken down to 16 bit for our 'perfect sound forever' CDP's all affect the sound.
We are fooling ourselves if we don't think our sources are compromised. People who work in the recording studios are willing to admit it, audiophiles don't seem to be ready yet though. We still don't have a benchmark from which to measure!
As is said in an earlier post, I have asked my favorite musicians to allow me to sit in on their studio sessions to hear what they actually sound like. So far I have yet to recieve a positive response. Until then I will only have to guess what they sound like.

I heard Tangerine Dream in concert once and did they have a sound system!! This was probably during 1986 - they used an all Canton sound system - WOW - Loud and Painful. You could hear the bass thumping in your chest!!!

I think the concert going experience is just that - an experience. You cannot get that at home.

I think all recordings are compromise - like Nrchy said. Although, I think they are better than most concerts I have heard - except for the emotional expereince.

Dave

Sometimes home is definitely better! Like when I saw John Mayall's Jazz-Blues fusion group in my home town. Mayall was drunk,the band were telling bad bathroom jokes, using a lousy local PA system, and they were sloppy as hell. The album on my portable was WAY better! But Mayall a few years earlier in a small venue, great sound, with Sugarcane Harris and Harvey Mandel playing out of their minds and these three musicians making enough sound for ten, was another story. On both issues, the MUSICAL one, and the SONIC one, the earlier performance couldn't be had at home. It was a transporting experience that I remember vividly thirty years later.

But listening at home with friends is not to be dissed, either. No, it's not the Mahavishnu Orchestra Live, but it's still pretty damn good to hear Mahavishnu on LP when I consider the odds of being at the real thing again!

I have found that the sonics of live shows varies enourmously and CAN have a negative effect on me if it is simply unlistenable.

But on the issue of what REFERENCE is there for live amplified music: Can you really evaluate how a system replicates the acoustic guitar of Liona Boyd and say -"yeah, it's accurate, so it must be for Stevie Ray Vaughan at 110+ dbs as well"? I have never fully followed the logic of that. It seems it might be more a theoretical measure of home systems than a valid one for a vastly different musical experience.
Opinions?