I've learned to listen within a multi perspective context. Poorer recordings acceptable, even involving if I perceive the recording as historical and/or unique. This acceptance may wear off after hearing said recording many times, at this point I may not be able to hear past the recording.
Mediocre recordings make up the vast majority of recordings in general and recordings I listen to. All have certain liabilities but generally don't rise to the point where they are unlistenable.
Quality recordings can spoil one. The superiority of these recordings used to make it difficult for me to return to lesser ones.
Listening in a contextual mode allows me to just go with the flow, my listening habits these days find me simply choosing a particular genre and let Roon choose at random, recordings within my library, both streams and rips. Listening to music in this manner means recording quality all over the place, I find I'm far more relaxed when NOT making either the music choices based on particular desires at that moment OR making those choices based on recording quality. Letting go of this manner of self consciousness means I much more easily enter the consciousness of the artists. I entered this hobby with that very intention, takes both equipment and mindfulness to get there.
This all requires fairly long listening sessions (4 hours up) for me, and this is the exclusive way I listen with my main system these days.
