My question remains, what live sound are we talking about? The sound of Esperanza Spaulding at Sculler's in Cambridge with Joe Lovano? Because at THAT show you couldn't hear her bass tone definition (bad sound mixer who should have been shot), and she wasn't singing...if you listen to acoustic jazz piano recordings, which I am addicted to, every piano sounds completely different due to mics (try matching THOSE from different brands), rooms, pianos, engineers, etc., and pretty much all of 'em sound fine. Just utterly different. Same with orchestral music of any kind, all of it sounds different. Often VERY different. Period. Unless you were there during the performance perhaps huddled under the conductor's podium, you don't know what it sounded like based on the recording, and would have no way to claim it as a "reference." To claim a baseline of live unamplified sound as your reference is a memory based position, and although useful and convenient personally, it is flawed as a communication tool due to all of these variables. This position doesn't obviate an understanding of what live instruments sound like, or what great hifi sounds like, it simply makes a point. Obviously you listen and percieve and develop taste from live and recorded things equally (because you're you) and apply that esthetic sense to both, but nearly infinite variables are right there, and should be understood.
