EMM Labs on Bad Redbook

Nothing, IMO, can make those bad, crappy redbook discs from the 80's and early 90's sound like vinyl.

my experience has been that the better the digital source (and accompanying system), the worse those discs sound.

Agreed. You are better off buying a secondary, mass market $200 player with rolled-off treble to play those early CD's, and use your high-end CDP for the better recordings.

A dissenting view from the above posts. I don't have the Meitner CDP, but I think that an excellent CDP will make poor recordings sound better than a poor CDP. I listen to some classical music recorded in the 30's through the 70's, and it all sounds better on my current system than my previous, lesser system. Some of these are wretched mono recordings with hiss, alot of audience noise, and tape splices - it is all less noticable with a fuller more rounder sound.

Again, I cannot comment on Meitner and I cannot comment on rock CDs made in the early 80's. Most of the record companies are remastering those, anyway, because they realize the inferiority of the technology when it was new.

Rob

Despite the obvious flaws in many older analog tape recordings (SN ratio, audience noise, splices, etc.), they may in fact capture the musical information of the event, and therefore be quite enjoyable.

A poorly made digital recording, despite its superior specifications, may have left a lot (most?) of the music in the studio, and captured nothing but a hollow shell of the event.

The manner in which these recordings are mastered plays an equalling important role in the final product/sound. I have piles of CDs that I just can't listen to anymore as my system has improved. They just sound worse with every improvement. Of course the good recordings/masterings just sound better with every improvement.