What songs/albums/artists actually sound worse when played through audiophile systems?

If a lot of music sounds bad, then some dubious choices of equipment have been made.

Each piece of equipment, cables, power cords, amps, dacs, cartridges, all of it, to some degree..each item will degrade the sonic quality, in some way.

the trick is to chose components that degrade it the least, and are neutral or balanced in their areas of degradation..and then chain them together.

Where each individual device’s dynamic range of clarity is similar to the last, and neutral, centered -as it should be.

To get to the least compromised delivery that you can.

In such a system, everything played should sound ok. That each recording should sound as it actually is.... and the equipment should neither embellish, nor detract -in any area, way, or the whole.

There is no such thing as an increase in sound quality with a single piece of gear available anywhere on the planet. That would be an added distortion. Which decreases dynamic range and introduces massive problems. Ie, that each piece of gear is a cleaned window and perfectly aligned with the ones ahead of it and behind it. As you look/hear through the stack only, not though any single pane at a time. It’s like building a camera lens where the distortions of any given element are cumulative and exaggerated in some way by the next element.

There is only ’the least damaging piece of equipment’ (cleanest window) The ones with the widest cleanest dynamics and micro/macro detail etc.

It’s a subtle distinction but a critical one.

You are essentially, taking a photo, then printing it...and then taking a photo of that photo..and printing it..then taking a photo of that photo..and printing it..and taking a photo of that photo..and printing it...

Imagine the cumulative degradation in contrast, dynamic range, color purity, edge definition in the details, pixel matrix, all so on. Do that 4-5 times (standard audio system) with 5 different cameras and 5 different printers..using 5 different software packages (in each camera, computer, and printer) and I can guarantee the final image...is going to look like junk. A recognizable image, yes, no problem there, but... correctness? No. Not happening.

That, in a nutshell, is an audio system.

So never try to fix things by adding an advertised artificially created skew of some sort (leaner, darker, faster, slower, etc). Neutral and perfect with extreme dynamics that are spot on... is all you want. Anything else..well.. that just shortens up the possible dynamic quality range, even more.

In each stage, the range of quality possible for each photo imaging and reproduction device has to be better than the one before, as degradation will happen, in the images..there is no escaping it. Half million dollar audio system, it will be there, at any price, inescapably so. Intelligent application minimizes the losses and that’s the best anyone can get to.

Overall..what..maybe 6-12db of visual quality will go away (in the visual comparative). With the faults of each imaging and printing aspect of the given individual ’device’ intruding dramatically as a sum total at the given end point. That a cheap piece of audio gear is equivalent, in that visual chain, to a junk camera form the dollar store. Get rid of it. I don't care it is a favorite. It's making a mess. Quit trying to fix things around it--wrong move entirely.. Get rid of it.

Audio - same same. On paper the distortions may seem minimal, but in reality they are, to the eye and the ear..gross or notable.

Arcade Fire comes to mind. Great live, unlistenable on cd.

While a superior system, properly set up, will of course make great recordings sound better than an inferior system, it may or may not make most poor recordings sound worse than on the inferior system.  A very fine line separates the two outcomes, and depending on the specific systems and the recording it could go either way.

I’ve found that improvements in accuracy, especially with respect to resolution of fine detail, can often make mediocre or poor recordings sound more enjoyable.

A good example of that would be an orchestral recording having overly bright string sound. I’ve found that the brightness will be less objectionable if the sound of massed strings is reproduced in an accurate and detailed manner than if it is reproduced with less resolution of detail, and consequently in a more homogenized manner.

I’ll mention also that I’ve come to believe that time coherence can be a significant contributor to achieving that. Most speakers are not time coherent, including all speakers having crossover slopes that are more than 6 db/octave, which means nearly all dynamic speakers which have crossovers and are not made by Vandersteen, formerly by Thiel or Green Mountain Audio, and perhaps one or two others. And the addition of a DEQX to my system a few years ago, which can bring any speaker that is not time coherent significantly closer to being so, has helped to firm up that conclusion in my mind. Another member here who is very experienced with time coherent speakers had made a similar point in the long-running DEQX thread. Comparisons I’ve made between listening via speakers and listening via my very detailed and time coherent Stax electrostatic headphones have also led me to that conclusion.

Regards,
-- Al

HI,
 nothing is going to sound worse in a good system (different thing from good components), on the contrary. Surely some recordings will sound better some mediocre, or worse, but even these ones should be enjoyable enough and far from unlistenable. When the worst recordings make sense, are easy to follow, create a believable image and sound like good music (even recorded badly), then you will get much much more from the good one. This is the only way to rediscover your music collection. 

If it’s mixed poorly it will sound bad on any system. In the late seventies I went all the way down the audiophile rabbit hole. I had a great system to play crappy classic rock ( Steely Dan and a few others were exceptions).