Good comment, @tomcy6 .mikeydee, you’re not crazy. I know what you’re talking about. Newer albums can have a clarity and level of detail that many older recordings do not have. Recording technology and techniques have improved in some ways over the years, and have declined in some ways too. Some albums are recorded with the improved tech and technique, some with the damaging tech and technique.
Recording tape does deteriorate over time and with repeated playback. This can be heard on many older albums. Also, there were many badly recorded albums released 40 to 50 years ago. Many gems but a lot of junk, just like today.
Some people are not offended by moderate compression and there are plenty of more recent albums (last 30 years) that have been recorded with reasonable or even admirable levels of compression.
There is a lot of good music that has been recorded digitally and is available only on cd. If your ears can’t take that, that’s OK, but you’re missing some good music.
Over the years, like many people, I purchased remastered Rock CD’s to replace my original releases only to find that they were fatiguing and compressed.
Now that I have a higher-end transport/DAC setup, I am appreciating the sonics of the original CD’s. In general, there is more separation of instruments, natural decay, and more realistic sounding highs. It’s too bad that as digital production and mastering technology improved, the movement to add high amounts of compression in the recording and mastering chain came about.
I search the Steve Hoffman forum to find the best releases of CD and vinyl and then go to Discogs, where one can find used disks by their release date and country of origin. Now, I’m actually replacing my CD’s again with better versions.
With Classical, I own many modern CD and vinyl recordings, but I seek out older recordings, not only for the great performances and legendary conductors, but for the realism that minimal mic’ing can reproduce. This is probably the only time I look to buy a remaster, since many Classical labels take great care in restoring old recordings.