What is it about recording/livestreaming audio coming out of speakers?

[Bob]

Live audio going to a mic to record or stream... That's ok, for what it is.

But if the source of audio is a speaker instead of a live audio source, the result of the mic picking that up for a recording or live stream sounds like crap. 

I guess if I'm physically at the event, there is a definite difference between the live audio source and sound from speakers, but it's not like I'm thinking the speaker audio sounds like crap. 

What is that's not present in the speaker audio or that that a typical mic-recording-stream misses for speaker audio vs. live source audio?  How possible is it to get decent "recycled audio" that way?  I would think you'd essentially have to create live-source audio from a speaker, something indistinguishable if you're there in person.

[j_tour]

I would think you'd essentially have to create live-source audio from a speaker, something indistinguishable if you're there in person.

One could try.  Nobody has built such a speaker, though.

Maybe an array of highly tuned individual speakers could create the illusion of the real thing, or at least a  close-mic'ed acoustic instrument. 

Beyond that, individual variations in a room would have to be sculpted using reverb chambers or their digital equivalents.

I think it's more likely that people recording their speakers (i) don't have very good speakers to begin with (or they are coloring the sound in a way that you don't enjoy) (ii) aren't mic'ing them very well and (iii) probably other equipment or technical failures.

[lelle]

Each step of the way, there is some loss of quality/authenticity of the sound, which depends on the quality of the mic and the speaker used in each step.

So live audio => mic => speaker, that's two steps.

But live audio => mic => speaker => mic => speaker, that's four.

In a live environment you are picking up sound from all around the room as the sound will be louder and come from many directions. When recording a speaker you are recording much more of a point source that is likely to be more quiet that the live sound was for comparison.

Idk, that's my best guess  Does it seem sensible to you?

[j_tour]

In a live environment you are picking up sound from all around the room as the sound will be louder and come from many directions. When recording a speaker you are recording much more of a point source that is likely to be more quiet that the live sound was for comparison.

Idk, that's my best guess  Does it seem sensible to you?

I wouldn't know if that's sensible to kindly Bob, but that's the idea.

This seems about the point in other discussions elsewhere from long ago when some AV geek would stomp in and say "Blah blah live sound Broadway West End fidelity."

But, no. 

It's not just that speakers and amplification color the sound, or can be "flat" in the right room.

An acoustic piano's sound waves in any kind of room are not coming from any one spot.  Neither is the famous (or infamous, depending) Leslie speaker most often used with the Hammond organ. 

Yes, if you're in a concert of any size, you're likely hearing a mic'ed sound, blended with the acoustic sound from on stage many tens of milliseconds later, if it manages to reach you at all in a form the brain recognizes.

You do remind everyone that it's not just a case of reproducing faithfully the experience of live sound, several feet at most from the acoustic instrument — in which case, maybe some evil villain, Elon Musk type could force somebody to create an elaborate set of speakers to create an illusion — but there's also just generational decay.

No, I don't mean which power cord one uses or if the speaker wires are "directional" or something foolish, but at every step of the way, the output has been designed to reproduce the sounds in a certain way.

What happens when there are varying intermediary "philosophies" behind each of these elements?

I don't know, but I would bet that's not a good outcome for a discerning listener.

It's probably good enough, though!