How close to the real thing?

I wish that I could understand by what measure you guys are able to quantify realness. Is it information? IMO, realness is more than that. A high resolution photograph can yield all the empirical information of a direct viewing, but it's not the same, is it? We can go back and forth between the photo and the object and never be able articulate anything lacking in the photo. But still, it's less to me. I'm not saying that I've never been momentarily fooled by a sound coming from a speaker, especially when it comes from outside the plane, but to me, that's not nearly enough to make a case for realness. I suspect a system will alway's be limited, if only by the differences in the way that instruments and a speakers excite a room response.

I would like to hear the MBLs, but have never had the opportunity. Perhaps that fortunate, because I probably can't afford them, my room probably won't support them, and they are so ugly even my understanding spouse would have to call foul.

The step response you speak of, which is really a time-domain impulse test, is interesting, but I don't think anyone has ever shown a correlation between good sound and a perfect impulse test. As I recently posted in another thread, and just my personal opinion, I consider the use of first-order crossovers, necessary to achieve the perfect time domain performance the CS5's demonstrate, are just a marketing gimmick, and lead to more problems than benefits.

The Soundlabs achieve linear phase response because they are a single driver, have no crossover, so naturally they are good in the time domain, but does that really contribute to their great sound? I don't know, but I doubt it.

I was very tempted by the Soundlabs, but their trade-offs didn't quite suit me. And they're huge. But when the A1s are good, like on stringed instruments, they are most engaging speaker I've ever heard.

Live performances have a different dimensionality based on seating, hall ambiance, and all the little nuances that make it "real" to some. You can't catch it all in a recording. A guy that trips up the stairs, or a couple giggling a few rows back. These things make it "live" for us.

I think of it as analogous to watching a well done movie of a plane flying through Grand Canyon. If you watch it on your 20 inch Sony you are getting 10% of the experience, but if you watch it at Imax, closer to say 80%.

I've heard huge Rockport's or Verity's nicely set up that bring you very close to to live. I'm going with 80%

"If you watch it on your 20 inch Sony you are getting 10% of the experience, but if you watch it at Imax, closer to say 80%."

I like your Grand Canyon analogy Bjesien. But do you really mean to say "experience" or would "information" be more precise? . At what resolution does one start to feel the "take your breath away" experience of actually being there in a really effective way? It would seem that there should be real and unreal - simple. But maybe this thread proves that there are many subjective perceptions of reality.

I have flown through the Gand Canyon in a helicopter, and I have seen Imax. I have also tried memory experiments and read books about how recall works. The texture of simulation is far removed from real sensory experience and memory is but a type of simulation.
What all simulations share is distortion and lack of information. One day we might achieve near perfect reproduction of a recording, but no chance ever of reproducing the "experience". I imagine a time when a person's reaction to an event can be recorded and "played back" through direct brain stimulation, but the rules would still apply.
Finally there is the novelty phenomenon. An ad for an early Edison record player shows an Opera singer listening to a recording of another singer with his eyes closed. He witnesses that he cannot tell any difference from hearing her live. We chuckle, but I expect he really was thrilled and enchanted with the novelty, so he was easily fooled.