Quality of recording vs Musical tastes

Yes, I would not have discovered the MA Recordings label and their exquisite music, both artist and quality.

Sean; an interesting thread, and if I gave you the idea idea for it I don't know how-- but thanks for the "nod" anyway-- been having those "senior moments" more often these days.

I have done what both of your points suggest, but mainly I have tried to build my stereo system so that it would sound good with typical "run of the mill" CDs. But I do have my share of "great recordings" of music that I don't particularly care for, ie P. Barber's "Cafe Blue". But OTOH, I really do like J. Warnes "Famous Blue Raincoat"-- doesn't everyone have that CD? BTW, Leonard Cohen's new CD "Ten New Songs" is very well recorded and also good music/lyrics.

I think Stbhorn nailed it for me too. I often buy remasters of music I like, and already have, in hope of getting better recordings-- but as he states sometimes they're better and sometimes not.

Stbhorn; I can highly recommend the newly remastered (about year 2000) CCR CDs using the JVC K2 20 bit Super Coding process-- much more natural sounding than the originals and a lot of the glare, excess brightness, and electronic sound is gone.

Also, I have found that the major labels that record C/W music in Nashville are almost always very good to excellent. I like some C/W music, and the good quality recordings are quite a bonus to me. I just picked up "Waylon Jenning's GH", and was pleasantly surprised to hear an excellent recording.

I have found good re-masters of Buddy Holly, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry-- these may not still be great recordings, but they are much better than the original CD recordings. I suppose looking for re-masters is especially important with older music. Cheers. Craig

I'm totally into the remaster side of things,I've ended up with multiple versions of certain artists releases because of it.
I think that is a seperate point from Sean's original post though.
I also think regarding remasters it's nearly always stuff we've been familar with for a long time.
I hope my original post didn't infer that the quality of production wasn't important to me, it is and was even before I got into hi-fi on a serious level,even a basic system will reveal differences on production/sound quality.
However it isn't how I approach finding new music.........

I'd like to plead guilty, too. I listen to a lot more classical (Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Rossini, etc.) because of the beauty of the recordings. I also listen to more jazz, but prefer pre-60's recordings. I too have Patricia Barber's Cafe Blue and Companion (XRCD). I like about half of her stuff. More so her own originals, than her covers of other music. Jennifer Warnes, The Hunter and Famous Blue Raincoat. Jennifer's voice does a wonderful job of complimenting the lyrics of Leonard Cohen. David Byrne (formerly Talking Heads) produces very well recorded music. So does Joe Jackson. His latest recording of Heaven and Hell combines, classical, jazz, opera, and rock. As strange as that sounds, he makes it work and the soundstaging is awesome. Other good recordings are from the groups Pink Martini, and Barefoot. Barefoot is out-of-print, but if you see one of their two cd's in a used record shop, get it. It's world beat at it's best.