"Bridge Over Trouble Water" sounds artificial

To build upon Dave b's post -- if you put together a system that makes music you love sound bad, then what exactly have you accomplished?

As a thought experiment, imagine how BOTW would sound on a good system in 1970.

That is one horrid recording...period!  Nothing could ever save that mix.

Albums that sound like BOTW, and there are far too many of them, I simply keep the volume much lower than I do with a great recording.  This allows me to enjoy the music I wish to listen to and do so without being too terribly brash on my ears.  I would not build my system "down" to a lower level of quality for the sake of such albums.  I strive to put together the best system that I can afford and simply adjust the volume as needed.  But man, on those really great recordings, let 'er rip!  Full-tilt-boogie, what a blast that is.  Sonic bliss and entertaining as hell.

mammothguy, thats a good point,
We revisit oldies but goodies , like a walk down memory lane.. I recently  added  Carol King’s greatest Hits, as much as i love some song,s, its best not to put too much gain on the vol knob.
We have fond memories for these masterpieces , but not for the quality of sonics.
S&G’s hits had great impact on the youthful hippie generation. Paul; Simon was perhaps the greatest song writer for the hippy/pop culture.
We loved his songs for their folksy, creative words and melodies. Paul Simon’s creativity spoke the soul yearnings for *Our Generation* (The Who My Generation Live version)
I mean consider how important, and *sensational* the soundtrack is for The Graduate.
So the soso record quality on some , if not most of our greatest hits late 60’s/early 70’s , are *forgivable** for the creativity and as someone mentioned, their *nostalgia* emotive affects as we walk down memory lane...

@aeshcwartz 

I'd say, it has nothing to do with the recordings. Your result is just reflective of the current (true) state of your playback system in your room...even if the upgrade results, in some way, in an apparent step backward or down in listening experience (in the case of a few recordings). 

Either the "upgrade" was not quite "up" enough, or other areas of the system need to be looked at, too.

But, I can assure you, once you've finally gotten it right, you do indeed get the satisfying treatment All your music deserves.

You can look at better gear or better tweaks or both, whatever you like, but this sort of 'jockeying' of subjective impressions of various recordings as you progressively improve your system goes on all the time. And at times things can somehow, in more isolated incidents like you've noted here, can temporarily appear 'go south' a bit unexpectedly in the process longterm. That may seem counterintuitive given the rationalization for a given upgrade, but I would say this kind of thing is situation normal and just goes to show that you may have a bit further to go with your system...but I'm saying that if you keep going you will definitely get there.

Sometimes, that can be a difficult thing to keep in mind in the long run, and it may be easy to get drawn down into the weeds so long you lose sight of it...assuming it's even your goal, of course.