Reminds me of the Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

The real deal is certainly unbeatable, but even then you could have the best concert grand installed in your house and it would still not sound nearly as good as the one sitting in the middle of a massive concert hall expressly designed for this purpose.

I would have to wonder if a high quality recording of a piano in a proper setting would be more compelling to certain listeners than a live performance in a less ideal location.

I have an upright piano at home that I play on occasion, but I much prefer how the full-size concert grands sound in the big concert halls. I certainly enjoy the act of reproducing music with my own hands more than listening to someone else do it, but from a purely acoustic standpoint there are tradeoffs.

My Bösendorfer grand piano sounds much better than my B&W loudspeakers with high end project amplifier in the same living room. It is not even comparable.

:-)

Also see Glenn Gould's Goldberg variations:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/12/arts/music/12conn.html
    https://www.prosoundnetwork.com/archives/yamaha-disklavier-and-zenph-restore-goulds-1955-igoldberg-variations
    https://www.classicstoday.com/review/review-13701/