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What to do with bad recorded CDs

When I upgraded to Mcintosh and Accuphase - Kef speaker system, I am in heaven for the first time I started this hobby a decade ago.

I found my-self not even breathing, to capture every bit of nuance of the music... It was a great moment for me - and I am a professional musician. Rarely do I encounter such moments in live music !

Good Hifi can equal if not better live performance - for me.

But alas, heaven turned into he-- when I put on badly recorded materials. It revealed bad CDs to the point of me wanting to throw them away.

What do audiophiles do about that ? Go back to a lesser system to play these ? Or should I throw away great portion of my collection ?
gonglee3
ghostrider45
449 posts
 
If the music is good you listen through the imperfections. Great performance trumps great great sonics.
hitman_hifi
75 posts
 
If it's an older CD you really love to listen to, do some research to see if you can find a remaster or audiophile copy. Some older albums have been remastered over the years as much as 4 or 5 times!!

This should be obvious but, try to find discs that are made from the original master of the recording. And be aware that the newest versions of albums are not always the best sounding. Studios have been employing the use of dynamic compression more and more over the years to best suit the portable MP3 market with little to no regard for high-end audio reproduction.
jaybo
4,478 posts
 
good advice above. the song is the thing.
mlsstl
1,437 posts
 
What did you do with bad recordings on LP? I can think of countless LPs where either the recording or the pressing were so poor that it distracted from the musical performance.

You've received a good suggestion about looking for remasters. (Of course the reverse can be true. Sometimes the original mixes are better than the remasters. A friend had a "Yes" LP he loved and bought the CD which he thought was terrible. We solved the problem by my converting the LP version to CD for him.)

However, it is simply a fact of life that many recordings are mediocre and a few are just downright bad. At that point you have to decide whether the music is more important to you than the recording quality.
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