Live music is your guide, and patience your friend.
Such a simple idea, a truism that I'd seen many times, and yet one that I ignored for decades.
Only now years later, I can ask myself, why was that?
Well, in my case I think it wasn't always an accurate sound that I was after, but a memory of a particular one that I held in my head.
For a long time.
There will be some who'll say that no system can get anywhere near to a truly lifelike sound, but there's also no doubt that some of them get a closer than others.
As Edgar Choueiri pointed out in his Audioholics podcast, the spatial aspects and imagery, and then timing seem to be the keys into fooling the brain that it's not listening to a live performance.
The very 2 qualities usually found in live music!
As he explains, frequency response, sample rates, bit rates and other ephemera such as jitter etc hardly seem to matter in comparison.