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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
olson_jr
19 posts
 
Why not add a second CDP to your system that is more forgiving of lessor recordings?
commcat
79 posts
 
Seems that only one out of ten CD's are mastered to audiophile standards. To overcome this shortfall you might consider adding a turntable to your system. It will open a whole new world (or old world) of superb recordings that CD's have failed to imitate.
samhar
1,048 posts
 
If it's not a great performance it goes out to the car!
sit
315 posts
 
Get a decent equalizer unit. I know it goes against the perfectionist in us but it really makes a difference on badly manufactured CDs, albums, cassettes, & reel to reel tape. I would be unhappy without mine to use when it can actually improve the sound.
brauser
525 posts
 
I have found that some 'tweeks' help to take the edge off of a badly recorded CD. Mapleshade micro polish helps. Audio Desk edge beveller backs off some of the nasties. Painting the edge with a permanent marker possibly will reduce jitter. Bottom-line, however, is that as your system continues to become more transparent, it will naturally expose more of what is in the CD good and bad. I have some CDs that I will not play over our reference system while they sound tolerably good over our Bose Wave radio/cd player.
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