In my mind, the quality of the music always takes precedent over the quality of the recording. SOmeone recently gave me an unreleased version of Blood on the Tracks...it is noisy, not quite balanced, and absolutely wonderful. There is no doubt in my mind that a good studio, and even more importantly a good enginner, can make a technically better recording than one done in a living room.   In my opinion, though, the music itself comes first. There are plenty of examples of good and bad in either case.

dw