Does it have to sound good for you to like it?

I’m a big fan of historical recordings, both jazz and classical, so sound quality has always been a secondary consideration for me. That said, even I have my limits, which stop somewhere well short of Edison cylinders. ;-) But my musical life would be considerably poorer if I’d never heard Furtwangler’s 1949 Brahms 4th from Wiesbaden, or Walter Gieseking and Guido Cantelli in one of the greatest Mozart concerto performances I’ve ever heard. Ditto with some marvelous Charlie Parker broadcasts, Lester Young, Artie Shaw, etc. I’d certainly rather listen to a tinny Stan Hasselgard aircheck than the clumsy playing on "Jazz at the Pawnshop". I suppose a lot depends on your musical tastes, and I don’t necessarily blame people who have a low tolerance for poor recordings. And I suppose that, in some respects, my system choices are somewhat geared toward making historical recordings sound tolerable. For me the performance comes first. Good sound is a bonus, and can be enjoyable in its own right.

@snilf 

Please take the statements I made one by one and point out the ignorance of each.

"But then, there's this (from rok2kid above): "Classical is unique in that it's the same music played over and over by different ensembles.  You should not have to put up with bad recordings because there is always a better one available.  Fortunately, the recording technology seems to have peaked at the same time as the great conductors and orchestras." This is just ignorant. All three of those sentences show a failure to understand anything about so-called "classical" music."

Thanks

As has been pointed out, this topic has been beaten to death many times and not just on this forum. On this forum, the OP has asked what is essentially the same question many times over the years; in a variety of different ways and approached from different angles. Not to personalize things, but he seems conflicted in the matter and I hope he finds resolution at some point as this seems to get in the way of his enjoyment.

Personally, I make absolutely zero judgement of hobbyists who value sound quality more than the music, or that are kept from enjoyment of a great performance because the recorded sound is not up to (their) par. To each their own! Doesn’t bother me one wit and God knows, I Iike my ear candy as much as anyone. However, FOR ME, the idea that the pursuit of great (subjective) sound quality as the end-all is worthy of anywhere near the level of concern or attention as does the appreciation of the vast artistic riches found in a great performance of great music strikes me as odd. FOR ME and others audio is a hobby while music is much more than that.

So, those who don’t share this view should simply be confident in their approach to this hobby and instead of feeling defensive allow others their point of view and passion for the music as the end-all.  I would suggest that the two approaches can live side by side and that the key is to find the right balance of the two.

rok2id: "Please take the statements I made one by one and point out the ignorance of each." Funny; I was originally going to do just that.

1. "Classical is unique in that it’s the same music played over and over by different ensembles." The same score (usually), but not the same music. If this were true, there would surely be no point in listening to more than one performance of a given piece, nor would it make sense to have preferences for certain performances, nor to have preferences for certain performers. To suppose what you wrote is like saying that all beers are just the same beer over and over again, or that there can only be one interpretation of "Hamlet," or... etc.

2. "You should not have to put up with bad recordings because there is always a better one available." Again, begs the same question by presuming that all performances are just "the same music being played over and over by different ensembles," and that therefore only the sound quality distinguishes one recording from another. The interpretive differences between different pianists, or cellists, or conductors is, musically speaking, far more significant than the differences in sound quality between primitive and SOTA recordings.

3. "Fortunately, the recording technology seems to have peaked at the same time as the great conductors and orchestras." jfrmusic addresses this above with his remark about early Decca stereo recordings. There are SACD re-issues of orchestral recordings from the early 1950s that sound as good as well-made recordings from last year. And when, please, did "the great conductors and orchestras" "peak"? Read Harold Schoenberg’s book "The Great Conductors." I wish we had good recordings of Mahler conducting premieres of his own symphonies—or of Beethoven conducting his!

@rok2id 

As a classical music lover, I too would take issue with the notion that it's "just the same music played over and over by different ensembles."  This is no more true of classical music than it is of any other genre.  It's rather like saying, "I've heard Jazz at the Pawnshop so who needs Louis Armstrong or Johnny Hodges?"  While it's certainly true that there are many fine classical performances available in excellent sound, as you point out, it's also true that some soloists, conductors and orchestras bring qualities to the music that others don't.  Zoltan Kocsis' Rachmaninov 3rd is very nice.  Horowitz and Ormandy playing the same music are positively electric and unforgettable.  Both are in nice sound, but it would be a grave mistake to put both performances in the same category on that basis alone.