Taming edge from remastered CDs?

Lowrider57,
In my system, I have found that cleaning the AC takes the harshness away. When "the AC problem" is dealt with the edge comes off those too-bright CDs.

It is often just bad remastering. Many engineers when they do a remaster will re-equalize to try to create more detail. That makes it seem that there is better resolution but really they are most often making the remaster brighter. This brightness can cause the edginess and hardness you are hearing. If it is a minor issue I would not spend a lot of effort or money in trying to fix it
Alan

You need to clean your AC. It's not the CDs.

It's not the CDs.

The OP describes a property that many, such as Lowrider and Arh, have also attributed to "remastered" CDs. IMO, the source material itself -- see ELH's remastered "Luxury Liner" -- has much to do with this perceived edginess.

While I'd not expect to make a silk purse of a sow's ear, an upgrade to your DAC might help, and perhaps room treatments or AC. Before doing anything, I'd try some ABs of remastered and original recordings, as Larry suggests. I'd also compare a couple of CDs that you know to be reference recordings (e.g., Valerie Joyce, New York Blue, from Chesky). I'm betting a lot of the trouble is on the silver discs. The difference between a good recording and a bad one can swamp large differences in gear.

Thanks to all for the input. I'll note again the "edge" I'm objecting to does seem to be limited to re-mastered CDs. Most of the time I don't have complaints with other source material - so not sure it's an AC power issue (not saying over all system performance wouldn't benefit from an investment there).

Maybe avoiding re-masters is the way to go, although they aren't all "scams" are they? For whatever reason they do seem to have better resolution and "pop". I have a SPL meter. Will try comparing dB at constant volume setting between old and re-master. Either way, not a major issues...maybe just taping some toilet paper over the tweeter for these is the simple fix.

Equipment-wise I was mainly wondering if there might be an equalizer or outboard tone control that could be used on such material. Bypass it the rest of the time. Don't have $ for a Cello Palette, however!