Why I like my home system better than live music

On Sunday I saw three local bands and Theory of Flight at Studio Seven in South Seattle. (Unfortunately I got paged and had to leave before Marcy Playground took the stage --grrr!)

Studio Seven is a great venue that can hold up to 750 although I suspect only half that were at Sunday's show. We sat in the balcony and while possibly attributible to the inexpensive beer, I remember thinking that the sound quality was terrific and visceral. No stereo system I have ever heard remotely approaches that sound...

Rock concerts are the most problematic in general.

Still, I have heard several in recent years by major acts that were quite excellent in regards to sound quality:

Yes (with Symphony Orchestra) at Wolftrap in Vienna, Va
Porcupine Tree at Rams Head Live
The Musical Box also at Rams Head Live
Savoy Brown at Rams Head Tavern (Annapolis)
The Church at rams Head Tavern (twice in recent years)

I love live performances for the performance, but I can't recall ever being fully satisfied with the sonics - whether it be due to my seat location, the venue acoustics, audience distractions, or the performer's poor mix setting - it's never as good as you'd like, with rare exception. In your home, with carefully engineered source material, you can control those things.

Forgot to mention that even paul McCartney concert last year at FedEx Field, DC (football stadium) surprisingly had very good sound, however, I was sitting RIGHT in the sweet spot at ground level between the two speaker columns. That was an unbelievable ticket score and most SWEET!

BTW, Recorded music I have heard during games at M&T bank Stadium (ravens) is darn good sounding. Modern NFL football stadiums seem to have some of the very best large scale SOTA sound systems installed!