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.
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.
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.