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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
fuzztone's avatar
fuzztone
5,640 posts
 
Rule 1.
Nothing sounds the same at home as it does in the store.
Why bother?
Are you listening to enjoy music,
OR,
recording quality?
If it is the latter you’d better be richer than most of us.
tablejockey
4,016 posts
 
Led Zeppelin or "Classic Rock" from the 60-70's and beyond-

Stay away from forums and just enjoy kick ass music-LOUD whatever you gonna use as source.
You just won't get a cut and dry answer here or other forums.

Return with preference of format, maybe you can get a more focused answer.

Pretty safe to say the mighty Zeppelin is still preferred on a period EL PEE by many.
CD/File sound good on a proper setup  but..that's another thread subject. 

As mentioned, if one has the resources for R2R, you're gonna hear Page/Plant throw down like it's 1972.
jond's avatar
jond
5,985 posts
 
A good system will extract the essence of poor recordings, they may not sound better but you should be more involved in them if that makes any sense?


BTW look at good sounding high current SS amps for your Maggies and congrats on the new speakers!
mapman's avatar
mapman
22,707 posts
 
+1. @jond involvement is the thing. 
ghdprentice
7,658 posts
 
I pulled up a copy of Stairway to Heaven from Qobuz, it is remastered an 24bit/96khz. Sounds very good. But then I don’t have a ear bleeding kind of system.

Someone recommended a Pass amp. I think that would be a great choice, a pass x350.x would give the Maggie’s the most punch you are going to get from them. Couple that with the best Audio Research tube preamp and you would have the punch, detail and musicality of a great system. Assuming you have good sources of course. I owned a Pass x350 for over ten years with a ARC preamp and ribbon speakers. I have auditioned Maggie’s many times set up per my request. They sounded spectacular… just can’t get early exposure to electrostatics out of our mind, can we.
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