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As system improves, do bad recordings sound worse?

My early efforts to improve my system usually resulted in making bad recordings sound worse. But at some point in my upgrade history, bad recordings started to sound better - in fact, better than I ever thought possible.

Anybody have a similar experience? Anybody have a theory as to why?
bryoncunningham
tpreaves's avatar
tpreaves
2,688 posts
 
In my experience,a bad recording is a bad recording.Better equipment might seem to help at first but the first impressions die off pretty quickly.Like I said this is my experience,others may differ.
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almarg's avatar
almarg
9,670 posts
 
Hi Bryon,

Here is another thread on essentially the same question. Quoting from therein:
(The question, posed by MrTennis): It is my hypothesis that greater resolution, while possibly "improving" the sound of well-recorded cds, makes poor recordings sound worse. thus, is greater resolution a boon or a bane?

(My answer): That was my initial expectation during the years when my system was evolving from low fi to mid fi to somewhere in the middle of the high end part of the spectrum. But I was pleasantly surprised to find that was not what happened.

What I found, at least with the classical recordings that comprise most of my listening, is that just about any recording manages to get at least a few things mostly right, and as my system improved and the things that were right about the recordings were reproduced with greater realism, my attention would be drawn by that realism to what was right about the recordings, and not what was wrong.

That said, though, I do find that a disproportionately high share of my listening is to recordings that are on audiophile labels or are otherwise high quality. And as Elizabeth said, if I had a $200K system it might be a different story.
Best regards,
-- Al
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