Beware poor sounding media

If there is no bad, good means nothing

The poor production albums are a disappointment, but the good ones and the superior ones certainly make up for it.  Fortunately, I have far more range from good to superior, than not.  It's truly a shame that mass produced albums typically began with a quality recording but the mass production process often times fell to poor quality of pressings (and all of the steps involved).  Greed took priority over quality.  I plan on adding a second tonearm to my turntable (fortunately, it is capable) and will play those inferior ones on a lesser quality cartridge.  The main purpose being not to add hours on a very expensive cartridge.  The music still prevails for me to want to listen to it, even if the album SQ is less than stellar.  But wow, those great ones sure are a pleasure.  The more my system has improved the greater the enjoyment of excellent analog playback.

I think my two primary examples for truly bad recordings are Josh Groban (Self Titled) and Josh Groban Closer. A friend of mine messaged me within the last couple of weeks after an attempt to listen to one of these CDs and lamenting the fact that it wasn’t possible to enjoy the music.

What a pleasure it is though if you can ignore the inferior sonics and get to the performance!  
Even with bad recordings, some of the quality of your system can shine through if you let it.

One example I can give is a 1964 recording of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring by Herbert Von Karajan. The recorded sound is not horrible, but primitive by today’s standards. It has none of the extreme dynamic range of modern recordings of this piece (some recordings from this period do, but not this one.) Yet, the impact is stunning by virtue of the extraordinary interpretation by Von Karajan.  You get swept away by his vision and forget there are other versions that may sonically be much more impressive.