Don Pearce wrote:

Do you have the perfect microphone that is able to emulate exactly what
I as human being hear?


Emulation of human hearing is the last thing you would want from a
microphone.

Except when you are using the microphone to emulae human hearing so as
to understand a thing or two about human hearing..

The ear doesn't even come close to this.

Perhaps somewhat a far fetched but nevertheless a telling analogy would
be between a human brain and a computer (cpu). Which one's smarter?
Depending on the model the computer cpu can make calculations a
gazillion times faster then the human brain, it will be more accurate
and consistent too. So, which one is "smarter"? The cpu, or the human
brain? Which one hears better, "a flat frequency response, both on and
off the forward axis" microphone, or the human ear?



Do you have a perfect account of the processes going on in my brain
during the musical interpretation of external sounds


No, and neither is it particularly important.

Yes, it is quite particularly important.


If you can reproduce the
same external sound field with a reproduction as would have occurred
with a live performance, then your brain/ear combination can get on
with its work interpreting both the same way. That is the goal of Hi
Fi.



I think that that is open for interpretation. My goal in "hi fi" or this
high end audio hobby is not to have as close as possible facsimile of
the "real thing" in my listening room, NO, but to have as pleasurable as
possible a re-interpretation of it *suited* for my listening room.
That's the reason for instance, why I would not consider wilson
watt-puppy speakers over sonus fabers..