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What songs/albums/artists actually sound worse when played through audiophile systems?

As much as audiophile equipment has elevated my enjoyment of music on many levels, there is some great music that just sounds worse than it used to when I had a cheapo system.  My number one example is the artist Ariel Pink (and the Haunted Graffiti).  His album Before Today is one of my all-time favorites, but played on my SET amp w/ Chord DAC and Klipsch Forte IIIs, it just sounds harsh/bad.  I know that my system is very revealing, and I love that about it, but damn, I may have to get a crappier secondary system to enjoy some great low-fi music again.

What songs/albums/artists are painful to listen to through your audiophile system?
redwoodaudio
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
Uh, its not the system's job to make anything sound good. Or bad. So if anything really does sound worse on your system, don't blame the recording. 
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,865 posts
 
It all sounds better.  
petg60
1,486 posts
 
HI,
I have to agree with MC, something is not balanced.
geoffkait's avatar
geoffkait
23,365 posts
 
It all depends. A lot of audiophiles’ systems are not all that. If it was that easy everybody could do it. 
mahlman
433 posts
 
That's the problem with good speakers. They make bad sound even worse and great sound as good as it was meant to be. It will faithfully play back what you feed it. Welcome to the world of discovering how many of your favorites were done poorly. Over the years I have had to weed out many bad recordings that used to be my favorites.

  Go learn about Audacity and sometimes this program can salvage bad engineering. If you do start using it keep a file of your original so you can go back to it if you have to.
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