Quality Red book CD

I was listening to a Simon and Garfunkel CD , ( circa 1972 ) its one of the best sounding discs I own, including SACD . After 38 years you would think all CDs would sound like this . The fact is you would have trouble finding one CD , SACD that is its sonic equal . Somewhere in the recording , mastering and replicating chain there has been a big step backwards , you would wonder how thats possible when you see a picture of a modern mastering studio . The industry tries to sell us on newer and the promise of better formats , if they put there resources to making better sounding and cheaper red book CDs they might give competition to the downloaders that they say are wrecking the music industry .