Jules Coleman- anybody remember him? He was a professor of jurisprudence, not a lawyer but a philosopher, who also loved audio and wrote some reviews or thought pieces back in the 00’s or maybe earlier. One questioned the primacy assigned to the recording given that it was hard to know if the recording reflected reality; to my recollection (I don’t think the article is "live" any more on the Internet)* --Coleman asked the question how one could know whether the recording itself was faithful to whatever performance(s) occurred. What it sounds like in the "booth" is different from what it sounds like "on the floor" assuming a group of performers is playing together live, at the same time, and leaving aside gear, mic’ing and mixing and eventually mastering. And of course, with overdubs (entirely acceptable in the recording industry to add things later), the end product is a much a creation of the recordist/engineer as the performers. Lots of variables, so Coleman asked whether "faithful to the recording" had any meaning as a reference for the home listener.
Assume you were at a live event that wound up on a recording you are listening to; you might, based on seating location, say, yeah that sounded pretty similar, but at a minimum, you would have had to have been there. How many records do you listen to where you weren’t there?
If we are talking about judging a recording via vinyl on the sonic merits only, I have a number of "cues" I listen for-- not very difficult--that tell me it sounds more real, assuming the recording/pressing contains the information: much is tone, and a lot has to do with timing of attack and decay, including harmonic overtones and the acoustics of the space in which the recording was made if that is evident.
Bandwidth -sure, but not the first consideration for me and certainly not at the expense of a grainless, "hear through" midrange with no artifacts. Every recording is obviously different.
But to come back to Coleman’s question, if you use the recording as the reference, leaving aside pressing issues, how do you know that is a good reflection of the performance? Not all recordings are created equal (nor are performances), but how would you determine this? See above re one answer, which is very limiting.
Some people look for more resolution, but I think I’m willing to trade that off a little (especially to the extent the resolution makes the record sound strident or thin), for more "real" (know it when I hear it). The leads down one of many paths of subjective audio. I do know that after hearing Crimson live several years ago, I put on the vinyl of the Toronto 2016 show (basically same playlist with same basic players) and it sounded quite similar to what I heard live in a 2,000 seat hall. Of course, I could not reproduce the scale of that or the amount and depth of the bass, but wouldn’t want to in a room which is a fraction of that size (but still a large room).
You can test if you have an instrument, preferably unamplified, and a good recorder of some sort. Even though, say, a piano is also a hugely variable instrument even between otherwise identical models from the same manufacturer- and tuned and "voiced" with the kind of care that you may be familiar with in voicing a hi-fi, you still have a sense of what the instrument is capable of.
PS:
*To my surprise, the article is still up so if you search Jules' name and "audio" generally, you will find it. Inner Magazine was the publisher. I did the above from memory. I’m now going to re-read the article and see if I fairly summarized it. Well worth the time in my estimation, if you are asking these questions and not just talking about unnecessary or colorful verbiage.