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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
gumbedamit
111 posts
 
Frogman: I respectfully disagree with your statement of a bad recordings sounding better on a good system vs, a bad system. Good/Great systems reveal just how poorly a a recording was created or how well. Garbage In. Garbage out. Lesser systems don't have the resolving power,  thus colorizing the noise making it sound better...
frogman
7,488 posts
 
No problem with disagreement.
However, I suppose it depends on what one considers “better” and what one’s priorities are. If, for a given listener, “better” means being able to hear more of how the recording was mic’ed, mixed, musical interplay among the musicians, and other choices (good or bad) that the artist and producers made, then a better system will ALWAYS, make a recording better. If by “worse” one means poor imaging, uneven tonal balance, sibilance, etc; IOW, the ear candy part of the listening experience, then, sure, that type of sound can be perceived as worse. 
digitalviper's avatar
digitalviper
123 posts
 
Every recording sounds good on mp3.
arcticdeth's avatar
arcticdeth
1,572 posts
 
Playing an early Mercyful fate live cassette recording, probably a 8th generation on my stereo, very revealing,....
if you like the music, just play it.
like my humble pie first lp, it has lots scratches, pops, clicks, etc, but I enjoy the tone.

   Listen and enjoy the music!


cd318
2,636 posts
 
@gumbedamit,
"Frogman: I respectfully disagree with your statement of a bad recordings sounding better on a good system vs, a bad system. Good/Great systems reveal just how poorly a a recording was created or how well. Garbage In. Garbage out. Lesser systems don’t have the resolving power, thus colorizing the noise making it sound better..."



Agreed.

The 1950s/60s systems that that those beloved Sinatra, Cole, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Beatles etc records were cut for are quite different to the playback systems used today.

Dynamics, tonality and punch seemed to matter much more back then than the obsessive pursuit of increasing amounts of resolution today.

Studio monitors were quite different back then too.
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