What is the true sound though? A recording studio is a musically "sterile" environment, nothing ever sounds good IMHO because it's not what our ears expect to hear! It's great for the engineers though, they can separate instruments and have minimal distortion. The "distortion" is added later artificially. I've recorded in a studio around 40 or 50 times and have seldom enjoyed the sound achieved during or after the recording because it never sounds as good as it does in a live, accoustic situation. It can only ever be a representation of your music played in an unnatural environment.
Wherever we listen to live or recorded music there will always be an external source influencing the sound, unless of course you live in a recording studio! So as I see (or hear) it having a pure sound is useful to nobody apart from the recording engineer. Therefore the best hi-fi system for me is the one that most accurately recreates the sound and feeling I get in an accoustic situation.
A very good point. I am an absolute beginner at the art of recording, but even with my pretty simple set-up it's entirely possible to engineer an entirely different sound and feel to the mix than that which was present when recorded - not least because of the huge range of post-processing plug-ins like reverb and echo that can be applied. You can sit and play an acoustic guitar in my studio and 5 minutes later I can make it sound like it was played in a cathedral.
The best any Hi-Fi reproduction equipment can do is to allow the listener to believe that what they are hearing is what the recording engineer wanted them to hear. The better the equipment, the easier it is for the listener to make that leap of faith.
