Like the word "whiff" because even closely miked recording captures some of the room or hall acoustics. I don't have any firsthand experience of recording, but can see that microphones are placed very close to the players from the many video recordings. Some recordings sound so live even when it was done in the late 1950s; others so dead even done yesterday (with 24/192 or DSD256). Recording is art as well as science, I guess.
Addendum: thinking about it: in fact recording, even if closely miked, cannot help capturing room or hall acoustics a lot. I have in mind 2 famed recordings by Gunter Wand/NDRSO conducting and playing Bruckner symphonies live in Lubeck Cathedral, which unavoidably reflected the reverberating church acoustics. The 1987 Bruckner 8 is phenomenal as a performance and also as a recording: the cathedral acoustics was beautifully and masterly managed, working wonders especially in the ending minutes of the divine third movement (the more drawned-out sound of French horns intertwining with a solo clarinet and strings). But the 1988 live, a year later, in the same Lubeck Cathedral of the Bruckner 9 - one of the greatest performances - was not recorded well; the echo of the cathedral acoustics was so pronounced and lengthy that it smeared the orchestral lines. Puzzle why, and a shame, the feat was not repeated.