How close to the real thing?

Good point Onhwy61, or distinction. I often prefer listening to my home system to live while recongnizing there are aspects of live performance that are simply not present in a recording and I think the issue of compression mentioned by Shadorne is a very significant part of the difference between recorded and live music.

In my experience the difference between system and real thing does not speak to what might be more enjoyable in the listening - being different doesn't speak to what might be prefered, at least not necessarily. For example, live music rarely has the soundstaging and imaging of my system, and illusion and distortion I quite enjoy even if mostly an artifact of the recording process and better, more resolving equipment.

Shadorne has hit the nail on the head- commercial recordings are the primary barrier to making it sound real.

If you were to take a set of good studio microphones and put them in a different room, away from your system, you might be quite surprised to find out how lifelike the system can be if the mics are set up right. Nothing (so far) compares to a direct mic feed...

"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