What am I hearing???

You don't mention any of your equipment.

My first guess would be your speakers and their drivers potentially not being phase coherent especially at or around the crossover frequencies (most dynamic speaker drivers are not phase coherent to one degree or another).

Perhaps in your case, your speaker drivers lack phase coherence to a larger more obvious degree. If what you hear happens on many cd's and on another cd player.

Second guess is that it could be your cabling is producing a pretty good time-smearing effect.

Third guess would be a combination of 1 and 2.

-IMO

~~~~Stehno, I appreciate you taking time to reply! To eliminate speakers/cabling issues, I'll give it a whirl from direct cd through headphone output. Could I be subconsciously trying to find an excuse to upgrade cd?

Is the laser able to accurately track the non-concentric data without affecting sound? How much would it have to be off center before it started to have an influence upon sound?

Just The Facts,
By

Greetings,
Please excuse me for ringing in with a,some what, related question. What is smearing? What does it sound like?
Many Thanks,
Steve Bennett

Literally, upgrade CD!
There are still a number of variables:
a) CD has been manufactured with a defect;
b) CD was recorded with a defect;
c) CD-player has poor or bad analogue end;
d) CD-player hasn't sufficient drive for your headphones(btw which ones?)