The closest approach...really

Pryso, That's a very interesting point, but I am not sure I fully agree. That is, you are certainly right that different human brains, different backgrounds, different professions, et cetera et cetera make for different tastes. But if there is a real thing, and the notion of closest is referred to that real thing, how can it be that there isn't an objective way to define what "closest" mean?
In other words, one may have a taste for a bombastic bass, or for an incredibly acute tweeter, or for microscopic detail...and that is all good and respectable...but that ain't the real thing...in my humble opinion.

Ggavetti, what is real is what we perceive to be real. And it does not necessarily relate to huge differences, such as "bombastic bass".

My feeling is that you and I could attend the same concert, seated side by side, and have a quality recording made from that same location. Then we could each have a selection of speakers, amps, source electronics, etc. and choose systems which provide the best match (closest approach) with what we heard. Those systems could very well end up being quite different, depending upon how closely you and I might match up on the two elements I suggested.

I offered my perspective in the first place because Mrtennis stated he had never found an acceptable match of dynamic woofer with electrostatic speaker, yet many other music lovers are happy with such system combinations.

But this is all my opinion, which may also be different from yours. 8^)

Pryso, this is an interesting discussion...human ears differ, and so does our definition of what is real. On the other hand, do we have instruments that capture the true "physics" of a sound? To the extent that we have such instruments, and I am not sure we do, that is what I would consider the real thing. But you're absolutely right: our ears might differ, and very much so...and what each of us considers to be the real thing might differ big time. But if this is the case, all of our discussions should be pointless: what for me is "good" and "real" for you might be a big distortion of reality. From this standpoint, the quality of a system is a totally subjective notion. My belief is that there are ears that get closer than other do to the real thing as it can be objectively measured. These more educated ears are better equipped than others are in assessing the quality of a system. In other words, I wouldn't let the lack of education (in our ears) undermine the notion that there are better systems out there...but of course this is only my opinion, and I respect yours.

Ggavetti,
of course human ears differ, so the subjectivity trap is difficult to be avoided, the difference however is not as huge as some try to make us believe. This is especially true, if you, together with a group of audiophile friends have established a kind of a benchmark, say from the visits of a well known concert hall or other live music venues, or say of inviting musicians to play in your homes and then compare the recorded takes of their music to what the sound your rig will make of it. All this can and has been done and is the best kind of education for listening competence and sophistication.
It is the lack of benchmarks which leads many audiophiles astray and lets them fall prey to all the hype which surrounds our hobby. Equally it stands in the way of progress to educate beginners or in the development of better gear. This is the reason why I personally find it annoying, when in the midst of interesting discussions certain members of our community chime in mantralike, that since all hearing is subjective we should be content and happy with what we like. To my mind this makes for complacency and intellectual lazyness. If all the great designers did not have the benchmark of the live event, we would neither have Quads nor Gradients nor any decent sounding amps to drive them.

hi detlf:

there are two issues. objective quality, which you so aptly stated should be dependent upon how closely the performance of a stereo system approaches live music.

there is also subjective quality, which is basically opinion based upon preference.

as in any aesthetic endeavor, a consumer may select from competing products and end up with some level of inaccuarcy to the real thing and some degree of pleasure with the sound of his/her stereo system.

i wise designer of phono stages suggested to me that if a stereo system does not pass the foot-tapping test, it doesn't matter how close to reality it sounds, as its owner will eventually tire of it and replace components.

my point is that it is difficult to remove the purely subjective element from the process of evaluating stereo systems.

in the end each of us , hopefully, will enjoy listening to music and probably be less concerned with its accuracy, or lack thereof.