Does Your System Sound Like the Real Thing?

I have a concert violinist and a pianist for neighbors (they teach in the music department at the university in town). I get invited periodically to their homes to listen for pre concert recitals (I realize how lucky I am!). So, I hear "live" music in a home environment, in additon of course to concert venues. I have to tell you that my stereo system, as good as it is (Vandy Model 5's, McCormack DNA 225 Gold Revision, LP12/Ekos/Lingo/Dyna 20x, ARC Sp9 MkIII, Trivista SACD player) has NEVER come close to reproducing what I have heard in their homes. Both these musicians have been very impressed with my system, but they are more interested in listening to the performance rather than to the system or even the music, which they've heard umpteen times before. This points out the primary benefit of our often considerable investment in our hobby--we get to hear the greatest performances ever recorded reproduced in our own homes. Pretty amazing when you think about it really. The fact that those performances at the highest level of fidelity do not approximate a live performance does not diminish the joy of hearing that recording. My musician neighbors always enjoy our listening sessions in my home, but I imagine when they tell their spouses about it they say something like "Ashkenazy's left hand on the Rondo movement of Beethoveen's concerto #5 with Solti and the CSO was amazing" rather than "Bruce's speakers image beautifully." So, no my system doesn't come close to sounding like the "real thing", but I just listened to Lucia Popp sing Porgi, Amor from Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and got chill bumps all over again, so I count myself fortunate instead of deprived.