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SQ or performance?

In classical music, how much does the sound quality influence your enjoyment of a particular piece?  I find it plays a large part. A recording is an artifact in itself.  There are many factors which contribute to the final product. And even a great performance can be sabotaged by poor engineering, poor pressing, poor microphone placement and the like. Conversely, a mediocre performance can be attractive to us because of sterling acoustics.   
In “historical” recordings we may allow for bad sound, but in contemporary performances the sound can have  a significant bearing on our perspective.
Also, our appreciation of a given performance can be affected by other factors.  For example, if we grew up loving a certain version, all others may suffer by comparison in our view.
 

 

rvpiano

Showing 1 response by mahler123

mahler123
3,515 posts
 

I listen to a lot of historical performances along with modern (I.e. stereo).  So I can’t really say SQ is the deciding factor.  It is definitely important, however.  Even historical performances can sound very different depending upon the restoration technique.  Compare Pristine Audio with Immortal Performances, for example.  They have both reissued the same NBC Symphony concerts from the early forties led by Toscanini and Walter.  Pristine likes to inject a lot of ambience, and IP is less interventionist.  They both are recognizable as having the same source but the differences are interesting.

   With modern recordings I am more tolerant of less than perfect sound.  I was listening to some Debussy from Vikung Olaffson on DG and then the same music from Peter Frankl on Vox in the same listening session.  I love both discs and having played the Frankl second at first the ear is confronted with opaque Sonics but soon it adjusts

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