Is live reproduction the goal of audio?

the 'ultimate' direction of electronics is to sell more electronics...the 'ultimate' direction of the consumer is to find enjoyment with what they have purchased.

Interesting question and responses. I think that equipment designers fall into at least two camps (I'm sure others can add more). There are those who strive to build equipment which accurately reproduces/decodes the signal being fed to it, so their response would be that they will leave it to the recording engineer and producer to get that live performance onto the recording, and they'll take it from there. However, there are also designers who appear to intentionally design their equipment to reproduce an emotional response from the listener, and perhaps part of this is an attempt to recapture the essence of a live performance that often seems to get lost in the recording process. I cite as evidence of the latter camp the large number of pieces of high end equipment which measure poorly but nonetheless have been critically acclaimed and have their ardent supporters. These designers might tell you, though, that their purpose is to bring out the best in the music being played through the system, not necessarily to reproduce the original performance. I guess my goal as the obsessive compulsive neurotic that I am is to assemble a system of components that gets me closer to the original performance if possible (I know that's never going to happen, particularly with full scale symphonic repertoire) but above all communicates the composer's/artist's message and the emotion of the performance and music being played.

I guess my goal...is to assemble a system of components that gets me closer to the original performance...but above all communicates the composer's/artist's message and the emotion of the performance and music being played.

What exactly entails "getting closer to the original performance"?

I've been struggling with this concept myself, and while I have owned components that have been technically superior in accurately reproducing the recording, my present gear clearly communicates the emotion of the performance in a more effective manner.

I'm not sure which of my several system iterations gets me closer to the original performance, but I tend to favor my present, less accurate system.

Thye point is...your cd disc ,or vinyl records have tons of info in them. You are not getting even 25% out of it ,and I don't care what brand or how much you paid for it.

"The goal of audio electronics and transducers is to sound as life-like as possible but this is not at all the same as "live"."

What music isn't recorded live? How else can you record an instrument if it isn't a live person recording it?

C5150 - that's deep.