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Bad recordings and high end audio

Hello. Have decided that the kids are out of the house and I can dedicate some space and money to my long ignored hobby. What is different now is there are so few audio stores. I firmly believe in listening to products so thus I start this great new chapter of my life. The first 2 stores I went to the people were very patient with me and I listened to a ton of combinations. They asked me did I want to hear anything else and I said  yes, ummm,.. how about Led Zeppelin? I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible” except for this one version of Led Zeppelin 2…blah blah. So I said what happens if I am at home and i have a desire to play Led Zeppelin or another perceived poor recording? They did not have an answer for me nor did they play Led Zeppelin lol . I ended up ordering a pair of Magnepan 3.7i’s from a different store. 13 weeks until I get them, ouch. I am going to guess that people do listen to poor recordings on great systems because you just want to hear a particular album, right? Or am I missing something? Just looking for a bit of insight. Yes, I know they want it to sound the best so I will buy it but is that the only motivation. Or maybe they hate Led Zeppelin, lol.
daydream816
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,304 posts
 
A good system let’s you hear what is in the recording. A lesser system won’t. It’s not always prettty but for me its almost always interesting to learn how all recordings are made differently and no two sound exactly the same.
To take this to extremes I digitize and stream old 78s on my system and even those are a revelation though nobody would claim these are good recordings by modern standards. On some there is almost as much surface noise as music. But the music is there, it’s very old and it’s very interesting as a result.
cd318
2,636 posts
 
I received the same response from both stores which was “all Led Zeppelin recordings are horrible”

The 2014 remasters are...ok.
The Barry Diament remasters from the 90s are pretty good but sadly Barry didn’t get to do Led Zep IV.

The rest aren’t worth talking about and let’s not even get started on the infamous Mothership compilation!

Led Zep are just another one of many artists whose best sound is still to be found on vinyl, but we can always hope that things might change one day.

If you want a chuckle check out the Dynamic Range Database and you’ll find one of the highest rated Pop recordings on there to be the 1952 Fred Astaire Story!

You can’t blame digital. It’s a great format no doubt, but one that you might feel is being criminally misused if you regard sound quality as important.

https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/39630
asctim
492 posts
 
Be careful here. It should read: Good recordings will sound better and poor recordings will sound a lot better than they would on a bad system.
This is more in line with what I think a good system should do. I've had systems that make some recordings sound supernaturally good at the expense of making others sound unlistenable. They never measure well.  If a system has flat, smooth, extended response with low levels of resonance and distortion it will tend to make everything sound better in my experience. 
tomic601's avatar
tomic601
12,914 posts
 
Funny and ultimately sad story from the mid eighties ….

Super die hard Zep fan showed up at the store..wanted a system that could really rock. He left with a nice system with Hafler electronics and ADS 810 speakers. Returned it all the following week because his cherished Zeppelin didn’t sound “ right “ His reference was and remained the Kmart white plastic all in one GE sound system….

His roommate  was in a band i mixed sound for…the GE system reigned supreme some four years later…
asctim
492 posts
 
His roommate  was in a band i mixed sound for…the GE system reigned supreme some four years later…
Well at least he liked what he had, and it was cheap! Lucky chap, I say.
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