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'Unlistenable' early digital recordings?

Obviously, today’s engineering of digital masters is far superior than the early years. Some say that many CD’s from the early years are ’unlistenable’. I used to agree. But, over the past couple of years, I’ve spent considerable effort to clean up the power to each of my digital components. Now, early CD’s are quite listenable. They might not be ’audiophile quality’ but the music comes across just fine. No more digital nasties. No more glare or etch in the HF. No more excessive boominess in the LF. I’m definitely a clean power convert. So much so, that I recommend cleaning up the power before upgrading to a new DAC. What’s your experience?

steakster

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bdp24
9,412 posts
 
It was Ry's idea to record Bop Til You Drop digitally, and damn was he pissed when he heard the results. He eventually heard a Water Lily LP, and couldn't wait to be recorded by Kav Alexander (on A Meeting By The River). Kav's recorder's electronics were designed and built by Tim deParavicini of E.A.R.-Yoshino.
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bdp24
9,412 posts
 

In the rush to get CD’s to market in the format’s early days, record companies used the old production masters made for the pressing of LP’s. Those LP-mastered tapes had their low frequencies filtered out to make the records playable by the cartridges the vast majority of consumers owned, and the highs were boosted to compensate for the losses incurred during plating, pressing, etc.

Newer recordings in most cases have not not mastered for LP pressing, and the sources used for mastering haven’t been subjected to the same filtering as were the older tapes. But as many have noticed, they ARE being compressed so as to create a higher average-level (louder) signal.

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