Depending on the music genre, the goals are different. Classical and Jazz, yes there is more effort put into trying to faithfully reproduce the live performance. Pop music( Top 40, Rock etc...) the goals can very widely, but faithfullness is not generally the goal. The goal would be to make it as palatable to as broad an audience as possible, with perhaps a bias toward the intended demographic. There is a lot of corrective trickery done in order to achieve this.
Techno, electronic based music is a lot more experimental, where anything that sounds cool, is cool. No holds barred.
The quest for absolute sound is futile. It fails right at the first point. The microphone. Microphones don't act like human ears do. There are a number of different types, dynamic, condenser, ribbon being the main ones. They all have different characters and sound very different when used on the same source. So it becomes like artists choosing brushes and paints in order to paint an aural picture. It's still a facsimile.
The producer, engineer, musicians, mastering engineer, record company directives etc......are all part of the equation as well.
If one were to trace the path the signal takes as it enters the microphone straight through to the time it emanates from the consumers speakers, the amount of conversions and manipulations is quite staggering.
I think even as listeners we are much like artists viewing another artists painting. The way you perceive it is in your own unique way, although there is some continuity from person to person. To unanimously agree on perfection is futile. There is no perfect facsimile. It is merely a recreation of a past event.
Cheers
