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!
