As it happens I'm listening to Toscanini's 1949 Eroica in the latest BMG
remastering, and it is stupefying! It's the funeral march now playing, and
it's a remarkable rejuvenation of such an old recording. But I don't think
I entirely agree with your premise. Too much is dependent on one's aural
imagination -- a little bit like listening to a Bach partita for solo
violin, where your mind supplies the implied bass notes.
It's a matter of indifference to me about the technical quality, although
I do enjoy a triumph such as these Toscanini remasterings. But I grew up
with 78 rpm jazz records, scratchy and clicks in the sound and loved every
second of it. I still do.
Bill S