"Some of us strive to reproduce a recording faithfully,
while others look simply to create a pleasing sound,
no matter what the source.
Regardless of how you define perfection,
can an audio system ever be perfect?" (Stereophile survey)
No, but...
The exact replica of the originary vector field,
i.e. (pressure, pressure gradient) is clearly out of question.
Maybe You can approximate something derived
from the originary vector field, paying attention to some
psychoacoustically relevant set of features.
This could be a problem of differential mapping between
differentiable manifold, with some assumptions about
which features you want to represent and preserve,
again taking in account which dimensions in
the originary manifold can ben "safely collapsed",
given the very complex non linear mechanisms involved
by human hearing.
This is the good novel:
there will ever be MARKET for many of us.
"Are "Golden Ears" an innate talent or
can you train yourself to be a critical listener?" (Stereophile survey)
May I suggest a (slight) modification to the original question?
Fourth choice: Equal parts: nature, nurture, marketing.
(Not necessarily in the same proportions.)
This consideration can take origin in the
surprisingly small number of recordings
some golden ears take in account to produce
"absolute" statements about mystic quality of audio gear.
"Highish Fidelity owes just about all to Jean Baptiste Le Rond D'Alembert. Not to mention James Clerk Maxwell"
"Most unfortunately no analytical solution is really available at now."
"However a BIG 'thanks' is owed to Mr.Gorbachev for allowin' us to know how precise a Soviet ICBM servo can be (this last consideration is based on a close encounter with some 6N30 Triodes)"
Another enormous thanks to Mr.Woody Allen, and to Professor Syd Kugelmass
Relevant to Highish Fidelity: Augustin-Jean Fresnel was a French physicist, not a French actor. It's better to underline that Fresnel never was a colleague of Louis De Funés
