what would be your criteria for loading music to the empeg, [choosing sound quality vs best performance]

There is not the slightest doubt: Best Performance.

Unless you are entering an IASCA stereo competition, who cares about the sound quality? It is the music that matters. Give me an inspired performance any day over technical studio perfection.

I have a performance of the Stars and Stripes Forever, recorded outdoors at a parade in 1961, just two microphones on sticks about 60 feet apart in front of a 120 piece band. The recording is lacking in bass response, is full of hisses, crackles, and pops from the original 40-year old Vinyl recording -- and if you listen to it, by the time you are 30 seconds into it you won't even hear the defects, you'll be so wrapped up in the performance. (tfabris and schofiel will back me up on this one!)

I have a performance of the Stars and Stripes Forever, recorded by the Boston Pops, perfect conducting, perfect acoustics, not a single mis-played note anywhere, excellent job of mastering the performance on CD. It is so cold and sterile and uninteresting that I don't even have it on my player.

This question is a no-brainer.

tanstaafl.