I've been working on the assumption for a long time that the "Absolute Sound" was the goal of this hobby, but I sometimes wonder why that should necessarily be, isn't it just possible that equipment might convey music in a way that might be even more enjoyable and communicative and not really by being an exact replica of live, just different and working on its own terms? I suppose the problem is that you loose the benchmark which grounds the subjective approach to a standard, and without it you really fall into mere opinion and preference - but I do suspect that many enjoy equipment that may fail by the AS reference, but succeed wonderfully on their own terms - especially in terms of imaging, soundstaging, etc - though I doubt you would want to veer too far from accurate timbre and timing.
