Beware poor sounding media

I view a recording as a work of art not technology.  

No offense intended @rvpiano, but I always wince when I see or hear musical recordings referred to as "media". Am I alone?

You'd have to go back a long time to find a bad recording. Perhaps you are referring to bad post production. It's more likely to be bad reproduction equipment that can't cope, resulting in a harsh sound.

Have you heard the troublesome recordings played back on high end equipment?

Spot on. I've listened to music and suddenly had a pang of concern with the equipment only to realize it was a crap recording.

a politically incorrect opinion to follow - to hell with what the artist or producer wanted. i've heard some atrocious excuses for "music" that had the worst, most obnoxious things done to the sound, such as brickwall limiting, insertion of extraneous faux-phonographic surface noise, excess tube emulation et al. what RCA did to the latest Elvis reissues is a case in point. and what is with these people who have "gone back to mono"? also just as bad, is poorly applied noise reduction/inept audio restoration of old recordings. i spend much of my retired-geezer spare time trying to ameliorate these issues using the near-miraculous digital tools on my audio workstation.