Thanks for your response. I listened to them on my Grado PS 500s and wow. I don't think the compression matters as much with headphones. What is your opinion on that? Also the Grados are midrange forward and that explain some of it. Id like to hear them through a Klipsch horn! I'm hearing their first album now and I have the same experience. I also hadn't heard my headphones in a while. Maybe I have overdamped my room.
Are todays digital recordings engineered to sound best on a smartphones?
I finally found some new hard rock that I like. Greta Van Fleet. I found them on YouTube and they sounded awesome on my LG V30 and some modified Grado SR60s. On boy I thought how they would sound on my 50k system. Strolling through Wal-Mart I saw both their albums and got them. I enthusiastically slid the disc in my SA-10. RIGHT BEFORE MY EARS I had one of my most anticlimactic disappointing musical experiences. It sounded flat and compressed with the vocal mix farther in the background. Pretty much uninvolving. If I had heard the CD first on a decent home system I wouldn’t have bought it. I will try my headphones into the SA-10 and see how it goes. Is YouTube streaming hi-rez I wonder???