Getting to know and enjoy music you don't normally listen to is a real plus. When I've demoed the tapes, one of the comments I've gotten quite a few times is that, " I don't listen to this kind of music, but if it sounded like this, I would.".
To me, the Tape Project tapes do honor to the artist. I used to play classical guitar and from the very beginning of studying to play classical music, there's a great emphasis on "touch" and all the little subtleties that make music of the notes (which is the real trick and what stands out with the great talents in the world, the music just seems to flow out of their hands). And just like audiophiles, musicians love their gear. I was at the guitar studio I used to hang out in when Christopher Parkening was trying out some different string sets ( he and the shop owner studied with Segovia at the same time and were close friends). There was a regular group that usually spent their Saturdays there and almost all of us used a combination of different string sets on our guitars (usually the wounds ones from one company and the solid ones from another, the really anal guys even used a third companies for the D [4th string] since it was kind of like the crossover point from wound to solid).
Well, to make a long story short(er), as he'd borrow each of our guitars and play a little, and we sat their praying that some of that talent would flow into our guitars permanently, we were all struck by how similar the different guitars sounded. The music making trumped every other factor that might have made the sound different. But sure enough, after playing different guitars/string sets, Parkening would stop and say things like " those are a little nasal sounding" or "Wow, I like that reedy tone". We'd all nod our heads as if we knew that all along.
The point to this story is, once an artist get to a certain technical level, it's all about subtleties. That's what is really important and that's what they work on the hardest. On the Cray tape, those little inflections in his voice, and the choices of just how sharp an edge a particular guitar note has is what sets one performance of a song from another. It's this kind of careful craftsmanship that gets lost in lesser formats. I find this to be one of the great charms of these tapes too. There's something about being able to listen to something that on the outside, seems raw and spontaneous, and then to listen into the mix and see all those "ducks lined up in a row". It's a rare pleasure.