If may add some points and I hope you can bare with me. Most of you are using classical music in music halls as the "reference" for the sound you wish to get at home.
It seems to me that this "reference" only applies for unamplified music but most music nowadays IS amplified. Jazz concerts are amplified, even if some of the instruments are not, they are amplified for you to listen to them. Diana Krall (to pick one name) will never sound the way she sings without microphones because we likely never heard her without them. Even her piano is amplified. I heard Joh Pizzarelli many times and he is always amplified. The best way to hear him "as if live" is in his Thursday's social media concerts from home. He signs to one microphone and his guitar is unplugged. Actually, those concerts are remarkably realistic.
There is a Youtube series of how major rock songs are produced, and you can see (and listen) that most of them never intended to be as if live. The recording engineer and mastering is all "artificial". When they release the song to us, they have an expectation of how they want us to hear it. They use their equipment, and if they are any good, they will do the mastering using good equipment. But sometimes, the songs are released to be heard on headphones. Again, they use the "medium" as if it was another instrument.
So, for the majority of music, you want your equipment to be as faithful as it is in the mastering suite with he sounds they approved for us. Problems arise when you have bad engineers or if it is done at home with cheap stuff. I don't know how Billie Eilish and her brother decided on the master of their record, but I think they did everything at home (there is also a video of it).
So, realistic sound for non classic music is a different beast to the concert hall. But in this case, depending on where you sit you will get a different perspective. You can never replicate what you hear there. My wife sang in a Master Chorale at Disney Hall a piece with small choirs all over the hall, not only on stage. The hall was an instrument! How would you ever reproduce this?
It seems to me that this "reference" only applies for unamplified music but most music nowadays IS amplified. Jazz concerts are amplified, even if some of the instruments are not, they are amplified for you to listen to them. Diana Krall (to pick one name) will never sound the way she sings without microphones because we likely never heard her without them. Even her piano is amplified. I heard Joh Pizzarelli many times and he is always amplified. The best way to hear him "as if live" is in his Thursday's social media concerts from home. He signs to one microphone and his guitar is unplugged. Actually, those concerts are remarkably realistic.
There is a Youtube series of how major rock songs are produced, and you can see (and listen) that most of them never intended to be as if live. The recording engineer and mastering is all "artificial". When they release the song to us, they have an expectation of how they want us to hear it. They use their equipment, and if they are any good, they will do the mastering using good equipment. But sometimes, the songs are released to be heard on headphones. Again, they use the "medium" as if it was another instrument.
So, for the majority of music, you want your equipment to be as faithful as it is in the mastering suite with he sounds they approved for us. Problems arise when you have bad engineers or if it is done at home with cheap stuff. I don't know how Billie Eilish and her brother decided on the master of their record, but I think they did everything at home (there is also a video of it).
So, realistic sound for non classic music is a different beast to the concert hall. But in this case, depending on where you sit you will get a different perspective. You can never replicate what you hear there. My wife sang in a Master Chorale at Disney Hall a piece with small choirs all over the hall, not only on stage. The hall was an instrument! How would you ever reproduce this?