Should the best systems sound almost identical?

Mceljo:

To understand what the "original/perfect" recorded/intended sound is you would have to use the original sound engineers brain and ears (probably while listening to the music through a variety of crappy sounding speakers used in the "original" studio, as well).

"True to the source" Hi-fi quests are dumb @ best, IMO.

The plot thickens. From Wikipedia:

Controversy over Sound Quality

Above all, these instruments are famous for the quality of sound they produce. However, the many blind tests from 1817[6][7] to the present (as of 2006) have never found any difference in sound between Stradivari's violins and high-quality violins in comparable style of other makers and periods, nor has acoustic analysis.[8][9] In a particularly famous test on a BBC Radio 3 program in 1977, the violinists Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman and the violin expert and dealer Charles Beare tried to distinguish among the "Chaconne" Stradivarius, a 1739 Guarneri del Gesú, an 1846 Vuillaume, and a 1976 British violin played behind a screen by a professional soloist. The two violinists were allowed to play all the instruments first. None of the listeners identified more than two of the four instruments. Two of the listeners identified the 20th-century violin as the Stradivarius.[10] Violinists and others have criticized these tests on various grounds such as that they are not double-blind (in most cases), the judges are often not experts, and the sounds of violins are hard to evaluate objectively and reproducibly.[9]

In a test in 2009, the British violinist Matthew Trusler played his 1711 Stradivarius, said to be worth two million U.S. dollars, and four modern violins made by the Swiss violin-maker Michael Rhonheimer. One of Rhonheimer's violins, made with wood that the Empa researcher Francis Schwarze had treated with fungi, received 90 of the 180 votes for the best tone, while the Stradivarius came in second with just 39 votes. The majority (113) of the listeners misidentified the winning violin as the Stradivarius.[11]

Analysis of the treated wood revealed a reduction in density, accompanied by relatively little change in the speed of sound. According to this analysis, treatment improves the sound radiation ratio to the level of cold-climate wood considered to have superior resonance.[12]

While the majority of world class soloist play violins by Antonio Stradivari, there are a few exceptions. For example violinist Christian Tetzlaff formerly played "a quite famous Strad", but switched to a violin made in 2002 by Stefan-Peter Greiner. He states that the listener cannot tell that his instrument is modern, and he regards it as excellent for Bach and better than a Stradivarius for "the big Romantic and 20th-century concertos."[13]

***Bad example - all Strads actually do sound the same.***

Really? I don't think so.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzWWkWvlMx4

Even through my computer's speakers, the difference is obvious.

Agree with Frogman, having heard a number of them. Same with Guarneris; each of these instruments is unique.

All good discussions above and all but what Mc's original contention or question is that on a PARTICULAR recording (be it a $1000 or Strads or Guarneris)., well matched high end best systems should bring out all three pretty much just like it sounded live while being recorded. We know that more likely than not they don't.
Why is that? And many reasons are mentioned above- diff speakers type, diff amps, diff type sources and many many variables.
But If all the systems claim to be reproducing the absolute sound they are all wrong because 1) none sounds like the other and 2) none sounds like the real thing. (caveat: rare systems do come real close in absolute sense, but not exactly though)

Agree with Mc's idea of testing recording live vs reproduced in high system back to back if you have unlimited funds ( like Bill Gates) and experiment and really find out who and where the culprit/s lies. It may come to the state of current recording technology or it come to speakers limitations and anything in between. But it is clear some research needs to be conducted rather than same old same old and leading folks to spend enormous amount of money and on wild goose chases.

When I was audiophile novice I did hear such claims of experimentation where they ( e.g My own favorite speaker manufacturer- Dunlavy) were auditioning recorded , say a live real piano in between speakers and then playing same recording and switching back and forth. I never heard these type of demos ever myself but how good was the comparison? Any one knows first hand?

Once again I do maintain the fact the there are rare systems that do give you many glimpses or comes close to the real thing. ( and I am sure all of us would raise our hands to say my system does that) But the fact that like OP asks, many so called best systems do not ( on the contrary quite the opposite in some cases).

Why can't we accept the fact that our technology is not yet space age and will never will be.

Back to regularly scheduled programming and circular arguments ;-)