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

I am a "music first" audiophile.

The music comes before the gear. I listen to plenty of mediocre recordings, because the music is so good.

But, lucky for me, a lot of my musical tastes seem to coincide with relatively good recordings. 

Also, jut because the music comes first for me, does not mean there are times every so often, that I can't enjoy just listening to a bunch of "audiophile approved" recordings, and just listen to the gear.

The 2 modes of listening do not have to be mutually exclusive.

I believe I’m becoming cured of my audiophile tendencies.

Recently I’ve been enjoying a couple of very rough Elvis demos from the Vic Anesini remasters. It is a real shame he didn’t cut them for real, and a few years ago I would have dismissed them out of hand for the poor sonics.

Not now.

 

https://youtu.be/mtGtUR_AWI4

 

 

https://youtu.be/w2qln6O0GKk

 

 

I believe I’m becoming cured of my audiophile tendencies.

No reason to be ’cured’, remission is good enough for me.

The vast majority of my listening is done with very little regard to the gear, other than it is bringing me the music I love.

But every so often, it is still loads of fun to do nothing but tweak my system, or make a change, and just pay attention to how good it sounds.