system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Does listening to a sound through a speaker have all the same frequencies as listening to it live, or is it just an approximation?

If it does contain all the same frequncies, how to the diaphragms in the speaker replicate dozens or so instruments and singers simultaneously?
gpt
There is always distortion.

A perfect speaker connected via perfect wires to a perfect amplifier playing a perfect recording will still distort because air itself is not perfect.

Your speaker is not perfect. Top quality speakers are extremely good, and the average person would require significant training to tell the difference, but there is distortion.

The amplifier is not perfect. Today these are probably the closest to perfect of all the parts involved. A $250 receiver is generally incredibly good as an amplifier. However there is always distortion.

The recording playback is not perfect, assuming digital media, the digital to analog converter is not perfect, even cheap ones are surprisingly good, but they are not perfect.

The playback-amplifier pair will very often have far below 1% distortion, and for even modest systems like your phone  you will likely see numbers that look like 0.003% in testing. That is not perfect but it is really really good. We typically measure this in decibels. 96 dB SNR (signal to noise ratio) is common, and it is almost difficult to find phones that are less capable.

The speaker-air pair is a different matter. Unless you have spent a phenomenal amount of money to run very high power amplifier into absolutely absurd speakers (we're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here) you will see relatively speaking massive distortion. They are often in the neighborhood of a thousand times worse than the amplifier. No really it is that bad. Speakers in a typical room you are likely to see roughly 40 dB SNR. That doesn't sound so bad, but dB is an exponential measurement, making them in neighborhood of a thousand times worse.

So there is always some distortion. The total amount of distortion can vary widely. Certain speaker types and enclosures have different response characteristics that can interact with the room.

You can, with enough money, get close enough that it takes a well educated set of ears to tell the difference. You probably haven't spent anywhere near that much money.