How close to the real thing?

"I have a studio quality tape recorder playing back a tape I made in my own house. So am I to believe that 99% of the time it doesn't sound that real, but all the other times it does?"

No. It means that some of us believe you can recreate a pretty good facsimile of "live" when the sound sources being reproduced are well recorded, played back using some of the finest equipment available, and the sources are in reasonable proportion to the size of the room the audio system is in, and the system has the power to recreate the output of the source instrument.

A rhetorical question for Atmashpere -- if the U67 is such a good mic how come they never came at with a U67 Signature or U67 Reference MkII?

Pro audio companies just don't get it!

don't forget revisions A,B,C.... of the Signaturre Reference Ultimate MK2.17

The more I read this thread, the more it becomes clear to me just how much this topic has in common with the myriad threads on "tubes vs solid state" (Now I know why you've given this thread a pass Tvad). A common theme of those threads is whether or not solid state can sound like tubes. The answers always seems to narrow down to: yes to some and no to others, depending on ones personal values. I'm no expert but it seems to me that we hear with our brains, and the brain is pretty good at filtering out what it deems unimportant. Sure a home system can approach the real thing if the difference isn't that important to you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that, as with tubes, some will always hear a difference because there is one, and it's meaningful to them, while others will not because of the slight value the place on that difference.

You may be right, but to me it seems like more than just a matter of opinion in that sense that I find it hard to believe that anyone one accustomed to unamplified, acosutic music would ever be fooled by a stereo system into thinking it is real instruments in a real acoustic venue. As much as I would love to believe that my system, and other far more expensive systems I have heard, sound real, it just doesn't, though I do place a slight value on that difference. Has a recorded saxaphone, trumpet, or drum set ever sounded real to you, where you could not tell the difference (assuming you have heard the real thing)? Really? I want your system. I do agree that one person's 5% is another's 95%, but either way, somehow it is obviously never 100%, nor can it ever be IMHO. This just seems like a clearer divide to me than the tube/ss debates.