Classical Music for Aficionados

schubert,  'just takes a thousand changes'

At least! :-) But you still need the 'perfect room', properly set up, and a perfectly recorded  piece of music. If that doesn't drill down the possibilities for obtaining the sound of real live music I must have missed something.

FWIW much as I love solo piano music I've yet to hear an accurate reproduction over an audio system. I'll defer on this to rvpiano  as he is, as I understand, a professional pianist.

Another similar observation - I really enjoy Sharon Isbin, one of our premier classical guitarists. I've heard her live in a specially designed recital hall where her unamplified instrument fills the hall (about 250 capacity) with crystal clear music.  I bought many of her recordings - too many actually. Not one of them came close to this live experience. 

I respectfully submit that perhaps you are really just suspending disbelief. :-)

Recorded music will never be equal to 'live' performance. Unless they can make a microphone that duplicates our individual ears, it seem we will have to accept that it comes pretty darn close.
'Suspending disbelief' is an interesting premise and one that I think has merit.
B

I agree with rvpiano. Recorded music can be represented quite realistically at home if the music is small scale and the room pretty large. Reproducing the full dynamics of a symphony orchestra is just not on, and will never be, I fear. The best to hope for is a postage stamp version. In the meantime it helps to use a very powerful amplifier that can cope with the dynamic peaks and not compress them.

gdnrbob
Recorded music will never be equal to 'live' performance. Unless they can make a microphone that duplicates our individual ears, it seem we will have to accept that it comes pretty darn close.
'Suspending disbelief' is an interesting premise and one that I think has merit.

Apparently you’re not familiar with the monaural binaural recordings of yore that employed a dummy head microphone arrangement that simulated a human head and ears.  

Upon reflection this what I think . All the physics are irrelevant, the psyche rules .
A 90 year Maestro who , given a hearing test, is doing good to hear
5000Hz . Yet he ,while conducting, hears the symphony as well as he did
at forty . The brain has a vast store of memory that can, and does, make
him hear that symphony as real as he ever did . The brain is always
looking to maintain a stasis as job # 1, and for that particular brain not to do so brain knows would be a major upset to its apple-cart .

Not speculation but research done at Cambridge, the worlds leading University on all things neurological .

Now I’m not Herbert Blomsted, who at 92 is still in demand ,
but I’ve heard him conduct many times and all told have heard well over a thousand live symphonic events .
I am certain the Brahms 1 I played a few weeks ago sounded very close
to the one I heard live a few hours before . And often does .
I do speculate my brain has  enough memory and knows where my passions lie to make sure that happens because at nearly 84 its not looking to upset its apple-cart .

YBMV (Your Brain Might Vary )