"Bridge Over Trouble Water" sounds artificial

So you're complaining because A Bridge Over Troubled Waters sounds just like a bridge over troubled waters?

I don't yet have a copy of BOTW, so I'll cross that ridge when I come to it.

I agree with many of the comments above.  That is, S&G early recordings were poorly done and don't sound well at all on a quality, high resolution system.  Vinyl copies are somewhat better than CD, but either one is not great by any stretch of the imagination.

When Paul Simon made solo albums things got much better.  There Goes Rymin Simon is very good, but still not excellent.  For the very best recording of Paul Simon try Graceland.  And especially the 25th Anniversary Edition release, RTI pressing.  It is absolutely stunning and will highlight the very best capabilities of your new system.

This is the best, perhaps only reason to have more than one music system setup.  For example my old car cassette mix tapes sound pretty good in my workshop on Spectrum 208As and Minimus 7's through a 1971 vintage KA-4002 integrated.
The office room has a multibit to a Vali 2 for monitoring and a Nobsound 3116 powering Pioneer S-H453F-K's and a JBL car sub for rocking out. In that room the cheap Chinese amp sounds much better than the Dynaco stuff it replaced.
None of these sources sound "good" on the "A" system.

Furthermore much of the old stuff was recorded and mixed for AM radio and cheap stereos, which we all had then.
Still, a lot of it sounds pretty good on "Wow I Haven’t Heard This Song in Years"
which streams at 128 kbps.
Alas, some of the troglodytes around here will NEVER hear those songs again