Quality system, make poor recordings sound better?

There are no recordings of the thousnds I own that do not sound their best on my main rig. Everything else is a compromise to some degree to various degrees on pretty much everything.

Let's not forget the individual is always a big factor in terms of expectations and how they respond to what they hear. that's probably more easily quantified than any other inherent technical deficiencies that exist in most cases.

Its the sure road to audio hell to not realize when a deficiency can be attributed mostly to a recording and try to make it into something it will never be via technology.

Once you learn to accept recordings of good music for what they are, rather than what you wish there were or expect them to be, it's mostly all good......to various degrees of course.

All i know is last year the same recordings i attributed to poor now sound great . a lot of tweaks since then . Makes me think it is not the recordings. But the system i played them on . When over %50 of my catalog not sounding good last year to being able to listen to pretty much anything now . It is nice . opens up a much larger world of enjoyable listening .

Listen: This really isn't rocket science. it is logical and provable. Some recording engineers used the cheapest equipment, wiring and mikes that they could find and were solely concerned with getting the music on tape. Some couldn't afford or didn't care about the latest and greatest recording equipment. Especially the mikes. You go to a good studio with the cheapest radio shack mixer, mikes and recording equipment vs the top of the line equipment and record the same performance/artist and you tell me that the recordings played back on decent equipment won't reveal how badly the recording was? of course it will. take most cd's from the early eighties and they sound as if a tweeter aimed at your ear with a drill. This is why so many recordings are re-mastered. an attempt to fix the early recording issues. or to make more money, or both. This contributes first hand to "listeners fatigue" Ever wonder why you have trouble sitting for a long period some times listening? Many times it isn't the equipment, it is the recording itself. it simply drives you out of the room. like a magpie in your living room. Don't get me wrong. Many times the music is great. But the recording is really poor.

enjoy

11-06-14: Maplegrovemusic
can someone who feels as the op provide us with a recording you think is poor . i would like to play it through my system

Although most of my listening is to classical music, I'll cite some examples from among popular recordings that happen to be from the 1960's, from artists I particularly like. All of these recordings are available on CD:

1)The Blues Project, "The Blues Project Anthology" (2 disc set on the Polydor Chronicles label). Particularly the first nine tracks on disc 2, which originally comprised their "Projections" album.

2)The Seekers, "All Bound for Morningtown; their EMI Recordings 1964-1968" (4 disc set on EMI).

3)Matt Monro, "This is Matt Monro" (2 disc set on EMI "Music for Pleasure"). I'm referring particularly to the instrumental accompaniment, not to the reproduction of his voice.

I'll add that I would resist any temptation to blame the 1960's technology for the disappointing sonics of these recordings. As evidence of that, the Chesky remastering of the 1962 recording of Dvorak's "New World" Symphony, performed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jascha Horenstein (Chesky CD31) is easily among the very best recordings I have ever heard, and shows what the technology of that time was capable of.

Regards,
-- Al

Thankyou all for the great indepth answers. A few days ago my
daughters boyfriend brought over his IPod and connected it to
my main system. He was thoughtful enough to have downloaded
some of the music I like, new and older recordings. I thought
all the music played sounded spectacular. There wasn't that
big of gap in sound quality between older and newer recordings
that I experienced with CDs. Go figure. I think maybe I should
get an Ipod as a source for music.