As Geoff states, at best a system can only reproduce that which is on the recording. Though I am as guilty as most of ya’ll, the amount of effort and $ invested in our hi-fi’s is comical in view of the quality of most recordings. The vast majority of recordings---especially in the "modern" era (1950’s forward)---are not of music performed live, but in a recording studio, with a LOT of electronic manipulation applied to the already often mediocre sound captured by the forest of mics---some of them real crap (the Shure SM57---a $99 PA mic---is used on the snare drum in a lot of recordings!)---used in studios. Have you ever heard the knobs on a parametric equalizer---found and used in all studios---turned?
Pop (non-Classical) recording engineers are trying to create a "good" sounding recording, not one that sounds like live music. The idea of getting studio recordings to sound like live music is ridiculous; the sound contained in most recordings makes that impossible. HP’s slogan of the absolute sound is idealistic, not realistic. I myself am thankful for just living in a time when music can be recorded and then reproduced (in whatever quality) in our homes AT ALL. Live music, and recorded music reproduced in the home, will always be very different things, at least in our lifetimes. Now, a Water Lily Records recording is a different matter. How many WL recordings do you own? ;-)