I listen to music rather than audiophilia. With classical music the story is quite easy. Here I prefer modern recordings of good audio quality, for the audio quality and for the more modern interpretations, based on often extensive research into authentic perfomance practice. However, even here some of those recording are already quite old, and from the analogue days. A case in point would be N. Harnoncourt’s Bach Cantata cycle. On the other hand, I am also an admirer of Maria Callas, and those recordings often suffer atrocious audio quality. And yet....
With jazz and modern pop the story is different. Here, the original recording is the authentic performance, even if badly recorded. Kind of Blue is only Kind of Blue if it is the original Miles Davis, of course.
With the pop repertoire of the 1960’s and 1970’s that many here seem to like (I do too) the situation is horrible, of course. Recordings were often awful, and a high end system will only show that in its ugly nudity. I sometimes wonder if a PA system would not make the music sound ’better’.... What is gone is gone, and it is gone forever, unfortunately. I recently bought the Bluray of the Doors live at the Hollywood Bowl. Clearly the potential sound quality of the Bluray format was completely wasted on this recording.
