You just hit the heart of the matter, that many audiophiles call “high frequency harmonics”. Think of someone striking a cymbal with a stick. Was that stick wood, metal, fiberglass or plastic? Each will create a slightly different impact and initial sound. Was the metal brass, or steel? When we are live and in a room; the difference is apparent and profound. But upon recording, this difference quickly is lost.
Or, imagine being in the woods on a cool summer morning. A bird chirps close by. Without looking, your brain automatically targets that birds position as behind you, over your left shoulder, approximately 20 feet away and about 10 feet off the ground. You slowly turn around and your eyes know exactly where to look. How did this happen? Timing, phase data of the sound waves, attenuation of sound in the air at the time, temperature and altitude you are familiar with. The brain and our ears are remarkable instruments.
Yet, a child can tell the difference between a live performance and a recording.
My problem with Apple is that they have put tremendous technical effort into the aesthetic and engineering of the earbuds - but the quality of the sound lags behind competitors products that are much cheaper. Wish they used higher quality drivers.
I recall the first time I saw a THX movie in a theater that had been properly set up and actually had been tuned and certified by a team under the direction of my fourth cousin, George Lucas (He hasn't clue who I am. He's famous, I'm not). But it had ALL of the correct speakers on the walls, behind the screen, etc., and all perfectly balanced. This was in a theater in Hollywood. When the movie ran, "The Last Emperor," the experience was like that. When the opening credits were playing, you could hear every instrument in the orchestra and actually point to where it was playing.
The opening scene is of a gate into the Forbidden City and a cart entering. You can literally hear the cart coming from behind you, on your left, passing your left shoulder at exactly the right time it's next to you, then as it appears on the screen the sounds are exactly in the right place. Characters when they spoke had their voices come from the exact place on the screen where their mouths were locked, both left and right and vertically. It was phenomenal.
I spoke to the theater manager and was told that his theater had 64 channel THX sound. I was flabbergasted. I have NOT been in a THX theater so well set up since then. Most are mere approximations of THX surround sound. Some better than others, but the technicians have gotten very lazy since the movies have gone to multiplexes.