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'Unlistenable' early digital recordings?

Obviously, today’s engineering of digital masters is far superior than the early years. Some say that many CD’s from the early years are ’unlistenable’. I used to agree. But, over the past couple of years, I’ve spent considerable effort to clean up the power to each of my digital components. Now, early CD’s are quite listenable. They might not be ’audiophile quality’ but the music comes across just fine. No more digital nasties. No more glare or etch in the HF. No more excessive boominess in the LF. I’m definitely a clean power convert. So much so, that I recommend cleaning up the power before upgrading to a new DAC. What’s your experience?

steakster
rbstehno
1,473 posts
 
A sh$tty recording is going to produce sh$tty sound. A good recording with a crappy dac and you will get crappy sound. Put a good quality power cord or interconnect on a crappy dac is like putting lipstick on a pig. A good dac will benefit from good cables to get the best SQ out of it. 
I also agree that a lot of old rock recordings have little bass. Blues and jazz recordings didn’t have this issue.
ptss
1,964 posts
 
@steakster.  You are ansolutey right. Cleaning AC power allows the beauty of early CDs to come through. Particularly “isolation” of the ac power to the digital from the analog components. I’m fortunate to have refined Spectral Audio and MIT I/cs and ac power cords and every improvement to ac isolation is clearly audible. I use isolation transformers and Equitech balanced power to both digital and analog to wonderful effect. There can’t be too much isolation! As well, there’s no “digital noise” that went into the recording process. The old CDs are clean. 
mg16's avatar
mg16
118 posts
 

First CD I bought was Rush Power Windows, around 1985, Every track sounded like glass shattering on my M&K sat/sub system.

CD's sound so much better now. Still prefer vinyl.

sd40
40 posts
 
With pop/rock at least, "early" CD's are sometimes poorly mastered but usually listenable and often are a better version than the remastered ones that were produced during the "loudness wars" from about 1995 to about 2005.  I have been going through my collection and supplementing or replacing badly-mastered CD and HDCD titles with well-mastered SACD's or CD's.  As was said above, it has to be researched case by case. 
mahler123
3,396 posts
 
My favorite Organ Symphony is the old Paray/Detroit version.
Many DG recordings were indeed hard to take in their early digital incarnations, especially Wilhelm Kempff records, but I still prefer them to vinyl.
On the whole, early CD remasterings for Classical blew away the lps.  Sony alone saved Bernstein, Szelk and Ormandy from the sonic graveyard.  Bernstein Mahler 7 would be Exhibit A.  And RCA lps had become unlistenable by the 1970s due to the exceptionally poor vinyl.  At least the first CD remastering lacked surface noise and tracked 
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