Had anyone ever heard of this happening?
I too had found purchasing compressed recording to be quite irksome and basically a ripoff. But in the last year, I've entered a pretty unique situation that I've not heard of before.
After only a few upgrades a year ago, I noticed most of my otherwise older compressed and otherwise mediocre recordings had new life. In fact, aside from a bit of digit hash in some of them, many of these formally very poor to decent cd formatted recordings now sounded near reference level.
The bass can be absolutely phenominal, soundstaging almost as good as I've heard, pinpoint imaging, the cymbals shining thru with an air around them (perhaps with a bit of hash but again it depends on the recording).
Some of the more lifeless recordings (non-audiophile grade) I have been thoroughly enjoying over the last year include Chicago's Greatest Hits, Al Stewart, Isley Brother's Greatest Hits, Jethro Tull, Grover Washington, Bob James, and most of my Alan Parsons Project cd's or even my wife's Amy Grant's Christmas cd. Most of the Alan Parsons cd's are pretty decent recordings anyway but are now very good, especially the cymbals.
Dare I mention I tried my wife's Culture Club greatest hits a few years ago and found it pretty lifeless and put it away within 10 minutes or so. I just put it in again a few weeks ago. The percussions on track 4 are as tight, deep, and pronounced as I've ever heard in my more reference-like recordings. Almost all of the other tracks are quite good as well. There are many other cds, but I see no reason to embarass myself further.
The Isley Brother's cd is perhaps one of the worst I've heard(before last year). I contemplated numerous times about returning it for a refund. I actually felt that a crime had occurred with my purchasing this cd. And now almost of the songs are so involving with warmth and bloom that people who listen to it are tapping their foot for the duration. 'Harvest For the World' is something else. The PR&T is in many of these otherwise flat and lifeless recordings.
Perhaps an even better example would be a Vivaldi Four Seasons cd my wife purchased around 1991 found in a bin near the Warehouse Records checkout counter for $4.99 (regular price). Again, flat and lifeless and lack of dynamics. Today, I'd put it up against many finer recordings. It will lose but it would still place a very competitive second.
When I invite guests over to listen, I never suggest anymore that they bring their better recordings, but now I always suggest they bring their older and worst recordings they wish sounded better. And they always seem pretty amazed at the quality of these otherwise worthless recordings. A reviewer/columnist was at my home to evaluate my system last summer. He had mentioned that he had purchased 3 different pressings of Al Stewart in order to find the best one, so I put on that cd and he was quite impressed with the sound and especially the bass on these older recordings. He took a stab at explaining why he thought it sounded so good.
There's only been a few recordings that appear completely unsalvageable on my system. Two of which come to mind include an old 1968 Grand Funk Railroad recording on cd and some of the songs on Tears for Fears greatest hits cd.
Now it's most always fun to load up an old cd and see what I've missed in the past. Sure there's plenty of songs I still don't care for, but it's almost never due to inferior engineering quality now. However, in my heart of hearts J.Geils will always sound inferior.
-IMO
