Detailed sound? Real?

Most rock music gets mixed, equalized and compressed in the studio. This doesn't happen on stage

False. Every pop/rock commercial venue I've ever been to had some sort of mixer/PA system for music. In the pop/rock world live, unamplified sound is virtually non-existent. Amplified concert performances should not be used as a reference for how real music sounds.

There are times when a recording engineer is actually trying to accurately capture exactly what a musician playing a real instrument in a real acoustic space sounds like. But this situation is really not that common (at least in commercial music production). Recording is more akin to making a commercial Hollywood style movie than a documentary film. In movies to make something look or sound real is the result of dozens of crafts people doing everything but what actually appears on the screen. It sounds silly, but things have to be more real than reality or else it doesn't appear real on the screen. Filming a scene that is supposed to take place in the rain is a perfect example. Real rainfall doesn't film well -- you need fake rain. It's a very similar situation with recording music. If you just placed two microphones midway back in a concert hall and recorded the output, it probably won't sound very good, nor will it sound real.

Just like anything you can push this fake reality too far. The trend in audiophile sound reproduction over the past two decades has been toward an overly detailed sound. It's as if we want a nearfield listening experience sitting 10 feet from the speaker.

real interaction vs simulated. apply that to anything. reading a good book doesn't put you in the jungle....it may however enrich your life.

I find that using 'live performance' or 'live music' as a benchmark is foolish. There are lots of venues where chamber music sounds atrocious, because of the acoustics, the woman in the taffeta dress three seats away who can't sit still, and the guy with the sniffles behind you. For rock or jazz music in a club, there is either the electronics, the acoustics, the fact that this is the 14th time in 7 days the band is playing the same thing, or what have you. If you are in a stadium-like venue, yeah... whatever...

What makes a live performance good for me is when the performers get into it. Then I can live with the taffeta dress, the smoke, the chair leg scraping, the bad acoustics, etc. Having seen The Bad Plus at the Blue Note is one of the highlights of my "live music" career. However, this had nothing to do with the sound quality, the "inner detail", the "air", the "timbral accuracy", or some of the usual audiophile terms. I had excellent seats to see the guys play their first set in Tokyo. It was great. They had a ball, and so did I.

For me, the "air" which is important is the decay of musical instruments or the decay of a real echo in a space (like the decay of organ, or voices, in Arvo Part's music recorded in a cathedral). I agree with the earlier point about miking. Good miking makes a recorded performance more detailed than a live performance (very rarely have I been close enough to hear a cellist breathe the way I can hear Peter Wispelwey breathe on the Channel Classics SACD of Benjamin Britten Cello Suites). That is not necessarily bad, it just is...

My goal is not for my system to necessarily sound like a live concert.

My goal is for my system to reveal the full extent of the particular recording, and to (hopefully) give me a sense of the space it was recorded in.

There is more than one performance on a recording. Besides the performance of the musicians, you are listening to the artistry of the producer and the various engineers involved.

Agree with OP and Lokie --"I think this hobby can be split between two types of people: Those who listen to music and those who listen to stereo gear." to the point, and 100% class A no distortion or phase shift truth! Forget chasing absolute sound-- that is a life-force sucking venture.

Don't you all just get totally burned out sometimes, with all this obsession about the nth degree of signal chain fidelity... (and now we find ourselves pining away at the power supply quality and number of cheap op amps at the mixing board-lol)? I think most of us inherently self limit simple enjoyment of sound/music/whatever the more wrapped up in this quest for sonic nirvana we allow ourselves (vicious cycle). I know I have been there many times. I'm not saying we are all the same, but I bet a large % of you also find yourselves sitting there after the latest upgrade excitement wears off...wondering what's next? This is the point at which I have learned to walk away from my system for weeks. I look at my non insane (i mean non audiophile friends) friends who actually just enjoy music regardless of playback medium and it hits me like a 1000 pound transport-- They are the enlightend ones folks, not us. We are just equipment loving fools chasing our tails... All in good fun. Like you for whatever reason I have been cursed with this nagging desire for ever better high fidelity playback. I'm going to take a reality break now and listen to my ipod. Peace.