Beware poor sounding media

I kinda agree with you. My reality is that no matter how great the performance may be its the audio quality that gets it played most often, but I will not listen to drek just because the AQ is high quality. When I listen to great performances with poor SQ it’s more for reference or as a reminder of what is possible. Fortunately for me its not much of an issue - I have a rather large and broad collection so I have much to choose from (I’m sure you do as well).

Newbee,

I agree. If it’s a historic recording or a great performance, I can suspend my expectations and enjoy.

Fortunately  as with you, the great majority of tracks sound just fine.

Very rare when a recording is deemed absolutely unlistenable.  The usual culprit for lesser recordings is micro dynamic compression, clearly heard as recording dependent, since music with great dynamics is reproduced as if real live flesh and blood performers in room. Quashed dynamics brings moret distance from performers, listening to recording rather than performance. Still, I find most of these recordings listenable if I don't ask and/or expect too much from them.

The strangest recordings are those with very different dynamic attributes from one track to another. Just last night listening to Syd Straw, 'War And Peace', harder rocking pieces very compressed, narrow and shallow center image, and then it's like different engineer/producer takes over other tracks, spacious, lifelike. I've heard this same phenomenon on other recordings, makes me wonder what artists/production thinking. Only thing I can imagine is certain tracks mixed precisely for mass market equipment, loudness wars mentality. 

I think Carol King's Tapestry fits the OPs description.  

I've said this before, but the goal of my music system(s) is to make sure it plays 95% of my music in a listenable manor. If you tune your system too tight, you end up with just a few songs that sound good and everything else is junk.