I do "just enjoy the music." I can listen with pleasure to very old--and old-sounding--recordings of great performances. I have a 2-CD set of Alexander Kipnis, and the magnificence of his voice can be heard through the fuzz and fog of the ancient recording. I enjoy the Busch Quartet's beethoven, sonic limitations and all.

But if I can obtain versions of such performances in what my ear tells me is a closer approximation of a live performance, why not? I'll enjoy them even more.

No recording, even if engineered by the best standards of today and heard through state-of-the-art equipment in an acoustically ideal listening room, can do more than approximate a live performance in an acoustically appropriate space. But some approximations are, to my ears at least, closer than others, so I prefer the best approximation available, even though it may have been achieved by altering the source.