Quality system, make poor recordings sound better?

11-07-14: Whart
Knight- Dreamboat Annie on Mushroom records, which I think is a KenDun master is actually a great sounding record.

I have most Heart but no Dreamboat Annie :-) There are hi-res releases now so quality has improved?? Concerts in Blu_Ray is very good.

Knight, sorry, don't know about the digital versions. I 'rediscovered' this piece of vinyl a few years ago, and was amazed at how good it sounded. Looking it up, it was apparently a 'demo quality' record in its day. (I was around in that 'day' and certainly remember the songs from the radio, but it wasn't on my radar for home listening). Mushroom was a Canadian label, i think, and these may be earlier pressings, but I believe they were widely distributed at the time~ doubt it is an expensive record if you do vinyl.
Enjoy.

Katy lied by steely dan is a great example concerning this thread. I have always liked Steely dan and heard many times that album has problems. I just didnt understand until recently.

I can only come to the conclusion, the resolution of my system is now revealing the weakness or issues.
Oilmanmojo

Very interesting as Katy Lied has a couple of my favorite Steely Dan songs. I haven't listened to it except on my ipod in the last...actually I can't remember the last time U sat and listened closely to it. Makes me wonder if my system as is will reveal the flaws.

I use bad recordings as a yeardstick to tell me how I am doing. IME, a system can 'editorialize' and can often react poorly to poor recordings, and also recordings with lots of energy.

An example from the old days was Village Music of Bulgaria on Nonesuch LP. In the old days my pickup had real problems with the intense vocal expressions on the LP and it sounded terrible. As things have improved, I have found this LP to be astonishing- dimensional and really well recorded.

From this and other examples I don't buy the idea that bad recordings sound worse as your system improves. A good system will take the bad recording in stride and will present what is good about it as well as what is bad without comments of its own. The smoother your system is (IOW: the less higher-ordered harmonic distortion it has) the easier this will go for you.

+1 Atmasphere. This has certainly been the way things have changed for me as my system has improved. We all have different experiences.