It's no use: I can't stay on the sidelines any longer.  My $.02 (or,
in $NZ, around $.05) on the subject.

On a professional background of something over forty years in
communications, education and broadcasting, I collect celebrity
recordings and phonographs as well as mechanical music items.

There's a philosophical difference between a "record" (passive) and a
"recording" - forgive the picky semantics and go with me on this - but
in my view it goes like this: a "record" is dumb, inactive.  It's a
literal image of what happened in front of the horn or microphone, and
should sound like just that.  (Although the recording engineer's skills
are used to make the quality as good as possible.)

On the other hand, a "recording" can result from a great deal of
technology and edited pieces from many records - it's designed as a
listening experience rather than as a documentary record.

They're both enjoyable - perhaps more so when the differences are
appreciated.

Michael Woolf
New Zealand