With pop/rock at least, "early" CD's are sometimes poorly mastered but usually listenable and often are a better version than the remastered ones that were produced during the "loudness wars" from about 1995 to about 2005. I have been going through my collection and supplementing or replacing badly-mastered CD and HDCD titles with well-mastered SACD's or CD's. As was said above, it has to be researched case by case.
'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?