Great points Andrew. For me that “recreating the live experience” is that last few percent of the journey, that I realise is probably an asymptote. You can get nearer and nearer and nearer (and it generally costs exponentially more!) but you never actually make it.
For me it is the difference between:
- sounds awful
- sounds OK but some significant flaws
- sounds good
- sounds really good!
- almost sounds like they are here
- I can almost fool myself that I am there
- wow, teleportation!
This is struts’s “seven ages of audiophile”. My last upgrade (most significantly a DRC filter) took me to a 5.8-ish. My latest upgrade (Vivaldi + darTZeel) takes me to a 6.0 on frequent occasions, albeit only briefly. To put that in context, I would rank the very best systems I have ever heard as a 6.2 or a 6.3.
But I (maybe foolishly) continue to pursue that mirage. My point being that without any sense of how live music sounds, levels 5 onwards become irrelevant because one has no yardstick to judge against.