Is live reproduction the goal of audio?


Is the ultimate direction of electronics to reproduce the original performance as though it were live?
lakefrontroad
Lakefrontroad - I'm sorry, my Anger Manager is on vacation in Mexico. If you'd like, I can let you speak with my Anger Supervisor. She gets in at 9 tomorrow morning. I can have her get back to you if you like.

Actually, the truth is, I don't own any audio equipment. When I'm not too busy retouching boobies for a living, I turn my Photoshop skills towards fabricating make believe virtual systems.

Dean - You had me fooled with those sytem pics you cleverly fabricated/retouched. I always wondered why I got a woody looking at'em. I kept stairing at the knobs on that Blue Circle thinking, "man, those things can't be real?!"
i personally am not trying to get as close to live as possible,im just happy to have a good sounding rig:)
Hmmmmm..... as I read through this thread,why is it that I keep getting visions of the old RCA Victor add where the dog is listening to an old Grammophone with the tilted head

"His master's own voice"
Guys

Why do instruments have little knobs and levers? I mean why do we constantly need to tune them. How many reasons and variables are there? How does an engineer "voice" his tool in some other venue?????? and expect it to perform it your venue with you not adjusting it.?? It is fixed in his time and space and energy ! But he went to school and has golden ears and ....You buy into it .
I don't know but I'll tell you that the VR11's that lakefrontroad has will come pretty darn close to live (maybe as close as you're gonna get).

Anyway, it's really silly to argue or get a little brawl going over such a vague and personal thing as goals in audio.

I guess if I really boil it down and get rid of my idealistic thoughts and drop down to dirty reality my goal is to enjoy it now and make it mo' better later. There is no end goal. I'll keep it up and die maybe in the middle of an upgrade that I'll never hear.