High expectations when listening to an orchestra

I have had season tickets to the symphony for over 10 years.  I often close my eyes and listen critically for sound stage, the impact of the kettle drum, the tonality of the strings and woodwinds.  I do it to determine what my home system should sound like.  With some fiddling over the years, I can get a very close experience at home when playing the same compositions.

I have also had season tickets to the symphony for about ten years. In retrospect that experience quickly started influencing decisions I made in system upgrades. I had happened to have accidentally bought a house with a large listening area with unbelievably good acoustics. This has been the most critical component. With the system I had put together... which I had dubbed as my reference system I could essentially recreate the essence of the concert experience at home.  One by one I would work on one parameter at a time... I would also zero in the minimum sound... the maximum sound volume. My seats are 7th row center. I would listen to the symphonies reflections from different walls of the very good acoustics of the symphony hall... as well as soloist directly in front of me... with the hole in the violin or piano reflecting top pointing directly at me. It took about forty years for me to get to this point.
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To do this I used a Audio Research Reference preamp, a Pass x350 amp,  Sonus Faber Olympica 3 speakers, 2 B&W 800 sub woofers and a Sim Audio  650 DAC with external power supply upgrade, and ARC Ref phono stage and VPI turntable, Transparent interconnects. The soundstage was fully defined, an oboe or Stradivarius violin sounded exactly right. The full blended massed violins perfect.I listen to the symphony orchestra with my eyes closed. I would have found it difficult to tell the difference. It was a great accomplishment, however in many ways the result of my dead silent and fantastic listening area. 

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Since then, I have significantly upgraded my system and lost the fidelity. My reference system had much high frequency energy which defined the venue... it really high lighted instruments. My new system is much more musical for other types of music... it does not call attention to the detail as much as my other system did. 
My point is, you don’t need to spend hundreds of thousand to do it. It requires an extraordinary listening space and a very synergistic components and a lot of work.

I couldn’t agree more with the OP.  After every Concert I am always struck by the gap in realism between my systems and the real thing.
   Eventually I come to realize that the “Absolute Sound” criteria is ridiculous.  Audio is essentially a conjurer’s trick-trying to trick us into believing that I am hearing the real thing.
  Since I am not some 18th Century Hungarian Prince, I can’t afford to have my own Orchestra and Concert Hall.  So I have to settle for the conjurer and constantly try to tweak it.  It is salutary to listen the real thing occasionally...I hope soon...to be reminded of the guy behind the curtain 

@frogman 

Of course it won’t sound like the real thing. Who would expect that it would? It’s a recording. I do, however, find it surprising that some are so willing to give up and not strive for as much realism as possible.

These points seem opposed. If it's obvious that a recording is not realistic, why is it surprising that some are willing to give up seeking realism? Can you explain what you mean by realism? It must be more nuanced than this, or it would seem foolish to seek something which is obviously not there.

@millercarbon said:

"Another time, sitting a lot closer more like center floor 10-15 rows back, that I could not do. Not then. Now? Different story. So nowhere near easy, but you can come awfully close. Come and listen. You will see."

This is what I referred to as the "Disney experience." It seems like MC achieved it and that it represents, for him, the ideal kind of realism. (Or perhaps the only kind of realism!) This is interesting both as a factual accomplishment and as the audio ideal for someone involved in the hobby for so long.
@rwisem concurs with this ideal as the one he/she is seeking.
@clearthinker hits the nail on the head with the key element in this -- the "massed violins" problem. (I would add that another possible indicator is distinct instruments, properly located, in the string bass section.)

Of course, if one closes one's eyes in a symphony to hear what standard their home setup should meet, then they're probably not closing their eyes in jazz clubs very often; nor are they listening to heavily produced music, either. Of course in film, this would translate as a very odd penchant for handicam documentaries -- no Spielberg or animated or other movies would be worthwhile because the sense of "realism" would be lost.

But that last point is probably countered by this one, namely that if a system can reproduce something like a symphony orchestra with seductive literalism, then it can easily play Steely Dan. That would be a fair point, I'd guess, but I don't know what those who *don't* care about realism would say.

But then there's @ghdprentice who reports that he actually upgraded his system and "lost the fidelity" while his "new system is much more musical for other types of music." Ok, so much for that last point about a literalistic system being able to do everything.