Why Live-versus-Recorded Listening Tests Don't Work
This is an interesting article
http://seanolive.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/why-live-versus-recorded-listening.html
Below is an extract for those that don't click on links:-
"Acoustic Research's Live-Versus-Recorded Demonstrations
During the 1960s, Acoustic Research (AR), an American loudspeaker company, performed over 75 live-versus-recorded concerts in cities around the USA featuring The Fine Arts String Quartet, and the AR-3 loudspeaker ]. To solve the double reverberation problem, the recordings of the quartet were made in an anechoic chamber, or outdoors. Outdoor live-versus-recorded demonstrations had the added benefit that there were no room reflections in either the recording or the live performance. This made the demonstrations less sensitive to off-axis problems in the microphones and loudspeakers. It also relaxed the demands on the recording-reproduction to accurately capture and reproduce the complex spatial properties of a reverberant performing space.
The AR demonstrations apparently generated an enormous amount of free publicity in newspapers and audio magazines where it was reported that the reproduction of the recordings was virtually indistinguishable from the live performance. AR sales increased dramatically, to the point where in 1966 AR apparently owned 32% market share of loudspeakers sold in the United States.