Sound, neutrality and the pursuit of everything

For me, one of the most important thing is tone, the correct/proper tone of each instrument and voice. The instruments and vocals must sound ‘correct’. After that, imaging, soundstage, and a ‘holographic’ presentation. And also for me, a very ‘big’, deep, ‘lush’, and ‘full range sound’, so, full range floor standing speakers are a must have.

Of course I think of what ‘could be’ to make those things better, and do try within my means and tweak what I currently have, but what is most important to me is making the system I have today meet as much of that criteria as possible, whether an LP, CD, or very occasional streaming. I try not to compare it to anything except what I listed, and to please me, and really, no one else.

Of course, the one thing we cannot control is the way the music was mic’d, recorded, mixed, processed, etc. Thus, I typically tend to play music that also checks off those boxes, as much as possible.

Bottom line, we are far from being able to obtain a truly ‘live’ presentation through our systems, no matter how much we can invest. But, of course, we do try.

The audiophile hobby is inherently a pursuit of some ideal. That ideal might differ from person to person, but what I am curious about is how each of us define that ideal.

I kinda like where my system is at. I cue a well recorded track and think: damn that sounds good. But compared to what? Do I have a point of comparison to the original performance, the day it was recorded? Usually not. To use an overused album, unless I was sitting at the Olympia concert hall in Paris when Diana Krall performed there in 2001 and have a perfect auditory memory, how do I know my system if reproducing it with “fidelity”?

If the pursuit of perfection is useless as perfection is an illusion, how do you all define your level of satisfaction or achievement in this audiophile pursuit?

Its even worse than you think. Even if you were there, and even if space aliens from the future set you up with the perfect system in the perfect room, still you play it back and wtf it still does not sound the same. Why? Because you forgot to rub the lamp and ask Genie for the perfect recording system!

Okay so you do that. And... still not right!?!?!? What the...!!?!?!?

So you saddle up your unicorn and fly up to the guru on the mountain top who says, you forgot to ask for the perfect recording format! D'oh! Coulda had a V8!

Or you could be like me, order some new speakers, and be happy if they can just somehow manage to be less bad than the ones that came before.

A system that reveals all the instruments and inner details clearly can sound better than live music in these ways, much like a 4K TV looks sharper and more colorful than reality, but lacks the expansive presence of being there. A room system also cannot provide that overwhelming sensory experience of being there, but it should not be expected to. I enjoy them both as an in-home experience that can impress me in ways that being there cannot.   

+1 @bkeske. When you eat a good meal, how do you decide whether or not it lives up to reality? You don’t, because it IS reality. And you are enjoying it. 
Above and beyond that there’s not much I can add to the good comments above. There is no way to get back to a neutral sound, overall, but there is some thing like the sound of a guitar or an oboe or a clarinet that we can hear live. 
But even if we are trying to recapture a concert, are we talking about the front row or the back row? In what kind of room? And everybody’s hearing is different so who’s hearing are we trying to reproduce? It is impossible to get back to a single reality because there are so many different variables and perspectives. So what we are trying to do is have an experience. Question becomes, does the gear produce an experience we want to have again?

There is no ideal sound, at least for home playback. As you move along in this hobby you should obtain better and better sound, but never an ideal sound. It’s unobtainable because there is no ideal. There is no glass ceiling. There is no such thing as getting within 5% or 2% of perfection. You shouldn’t be trying to achieve what you hear at a concert, only what is recorded on the record or CD. There is no perfection because of all the things that can go wrong in the audio system, and do go wrong. As Bob Dylan says at the end of all his records, good luck to everybody.