How close to the real thing?

5%, fwiw, is seemingly extraordinarily generous - at least to the ears of a trained violist and, at least according to him.

In a later part of the same conversation I asked him if he thought that it were possible to reproduce "even 5%" of the musical reality of a live unamplified performance based on what he heard from the conductor's system.

His simple response was "No, not even close to 5% - much less than 1%."

But, then again, he doesn't have CDK84's incredibly in-depth knowledge of today's stereo systems - he's just a trained concert violist so he must not know much, after all.

:)

Ed

Maybe we... someone... anyone can come up with a chart and modifiy it until there is a concensus...
I agree that it is near impossible to make a system sound truly "live", but I still say 5% is rediculously low.
Edison's 1st phono may be 5%, but What is
Tonal Accuacy worth?
What is a soundstage worth? and as the sound stage improves, does the value go up?
What is timber worth? P.R.A.T?
Do dynamics increase your score?
When an uneducated(audiophile or musician wise) person sits in front of your system and their jaw drops.... Would that happen at 5%? I think not.... Actually a verifiable rating system would be something that we would all love to have.
Wouldn't you like to hear a 93 vs a 27?

My head is going to burst.....

An analogy (yet again!): if you drank red wine which was always very ordinary or even mediocre, you would or could with great conviction claim that there is no such as a truly extraordinary, supremely satisfying great red. But, if you sampled such a wine even just once only, and then returned forever more to the much lesser variety, you would always retain the memory of the experience, and know what was achievable. All obvious enough; and to me this experience or lack of such experience is at least one thing that divides people in this field of audio.

This clearly puts me on David's side, in believing in AND knowing what is possible. If you can put on the worst, I repeat, the worst recording in your collection and still be able to say it "sounds convincingly authentic to the live source" and talk of "The delight it gives me, however, comes from listening into the music" then you've arrived. The fact that this goal is not achievable by pushing some "perfectly" engineered, platinum plated button at the moment is just part of the landscape ...

Frank

"Progress ad Infinitum", "Karl Popper" & "verisimilitude", "Copernicus"

That's what I was trying to say Kirkus, or at least it would have been if I was smart enough.

IMO, this has become a very worthwhile thread to the extent that it has veered away from it's original and more casual, percentage of realness inquiry, into something more significant which is an examination of perceived reality and audio.