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Poor recordings that are now great.

This could be a useful thread. It obviously speaks to the quality of the gear. Since I've gotten my Acoustat TNT 200's and 120 back from rebuild/upgrade, I'm blown away by the fidelity of recordings I've considered to be at the bottom of the barrel; all early recordings.

Beatles,
Stones,
Dylan,(some beyond help)
America,
Donovan,
Leonard Cohen,
Monkees,
Steppenwolf,
Louis Armstrong,
Simon, Garfunkel,
Procol Harem,
Johnny Rivers,
Chris Kristofferson,
Loretta Lynn,
etc.

That typical transient saturation is either gone or drastically reduced with the revelation of information lost otherwise, with a corresponding increase in imaging and sound stage. I remember a few salesmen back in the 70's suggesting poor recordings be used as the yard stick when auditioning gear but I never heard the kind of improvement I'm talking about. Interestingly, the difference in otherwise good recordings is not as apparent.

csontos
csontos OP
1,311 posts
 
My last response was to Zd542. John, I have to disagree on your rational. I have not experienced the polar sonic differences you ascribe to specific amp designs. A better(imo)amp has always performed significantly better sonically in every way. There's always been a smaller, albeit significant improvement with the best recordings. Hence the logic in using the poor ones to measure sonic performance. Almarg has a very good and valid position in shooting this methodology down, but I have gotten used to knowing just what to listen for over the years. I suppose I could just as easily use his logic. However,'the better the poor ones sound, the better the overall performance will be', has rung true. The TNT200's have done just that. They ring like a bell. These are vintage IC-less amps. Cost for each including the work done is about $1,400.00. I have three with fully balanced and mono capability, and one TNT120 with only stereo/balanced operation. I'm in the process of building a fully active altered JBL 4345 system. It took a while to acquire them as they are relatively rare in the used market.
mapman's avatar
mapman
21,890 posts
 
I recognize a lot of those and no doubt many are CD recordings (some remastered and released on CD within the last 20 years or so perhaps?) that can sound fantastic when things are going right, and not so interesting otherwise. The devil is all in the details. Lots of older and newer versions/releases/re-masterings of most of these over the years, some quite good, some not so much. It all depends on which version/release specifically and how well things are going on the playback end. Newer versions of most of these on CD I have heard have a lot of good things going on. They are not perfect recordings nor bad ones, somewhere more in the middle, which works usually for me.
csontos OP
1,311 posts
 
I have them all on vinyl and cd. Not one on cd sounds better than the vinyl, remastered or not, with the exception of America's greatest hits. Don't know what it is, but that one is fabulous.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good thread in identifying the good performers in terms of the gear regardless of price. I'm a vintage lover and I know there are some serious gems out there, the Acoustats being one of them. So let's hear about some other serious contenders.
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