It's not about replicating 'live music' - it's about getting as close as possible to what the producer and artist wanted the record to sound like; it's all about their subjectivity. "Live music" will sound 10 completely different ways from 10 different perspectives.
Pretty good. What we are doing is putting art on display. Van Gogh saw an olive orchard, painted his impression of it. Beautiful painting, deserves to be seen in a good light, with space for perspective, all of that. Saw it in a museum, nobody was trying to recreate an actual olive orchard. We just want to appreciate the art of Van Gogh.
Music systems are even harder, because the art isn't always like that. The recordings are the art, and they are as different from each other as a painting is from a sculpture. Nobody even can say what the recording is supposed to sound like! Not even the recording engineer! Even he, all he knows is what it did sound like when he was in the studio. If he even can recall. But even then what he recalls is a composite of what it sounded like all the many times he heard it, over and over again, this mix that mix final mix and sitting wherever, whenever.
It is when you think about it freaking amazing it works as well as it does at all. No wonder someone sings into a can, play it back on a gramophone and even that sounds pretty freaking amazing. Even though, as always, it is just a representation and not recreating anything.