Jazz listening: Is it about the music? Or is it about the sound?

@whart , You forgot Ornette Colman! You might also like Henry Threadgill, another genius. Try to fine, "Just the Facts and Pass the Bucket." "Too Much Sugar for a Dime," is also a great record. His recent stuff is morphing into neoclassical. In Just the Facts there is this female celloist who pulls off this amazing solo. 

Anton99, You listen to jazz and classical alone because most people won't listen to it. My wife will tolerate old Trane and Davis records or the like. I put on "The Art Ensemble of Chicago" and she will puke. She will listen to the Professors solo stuff.  

hilde45, sound quality and the music itself are both examples of the aesthetic and become purely a matter of taste. There is no ethical component. Ethics have always been a problem for humans. There are painfully few examples of ethics trumping survival. Survival for humans is now financial. Money trumps all. With the secularization of society ethics have flown out the window. Sodom and Gomora all over again.

I hate spell check sometimes. That was supposed to be discriminate.
Anyway, better systems make everything sound better. You hear the antiquity better. The music and artistry are still there. In order to really understand some artists particularly horn and reed players, you have to hear them early in their careers when they still had lungs. People who shy away from very old recordings and 78s are missing a lot of very important music. Enrico Caruso and Louis Armstrong are great examples.
Both were genetic misfits who had lungs twice the size of ours. Both had no need of a PA system. 

There are people who listen to lame examples of music because it was recorded in a special manner. There are examples of great music recorded in a special manner. Find those.

The best systems make everything sound better. They do not disseminate from old 78's of Fats Waller   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSNPpssruFY to 192/24 Nine Inch Nails. It all sounds incredible.