What is a bad recording?

A recent lousy example... mastering technician on crack literally had monitors out of phase, wondered where the bass went and eq'd it to high hell (ya can't make up this crackhead stuff). Fortunately, it was a digital master. You have to do forensics on it to salvage certain recordings.

On a related note,  i have a ns5000 based setup with a certain  turntable primarily dedicated to fix crap and archive albums from obscure long gone artists (only a very crappy old pressing exists, etc)...Endured some wallet abuse, but, it was probably worth it to get the best possible salvage solution for some artist voices that would otherwise be lost forever.

What is a bad recording?

@deep_333  - Please share the details of the recording! 

My top  system was low cost with Mission best speakers...

Sansui amplification...

Good dac from SPS...

The album is  "three penny" opera of Kurt Weil ...

Total surround sound from stereo speakers in my dedicated acoustic room ( I saw the singers singing and walking speaking around my room and near my ears etc ).. (100 tuned resonators located near the drivers and my ears )...

The speakers matter less than their link with the room...

The brand name of the gear matter less than the electrical control of the grid ...

Good sound is related to knowledge not to money ...

Here an extreme exemple of this  at way more price than mine though :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgqYxbJawqU

A bad recording is a recording which was recorded with not enough spatial acoustic information ( you cannot translate in your room which was never accurately recorded )... But a bad recording on a well optimized system/room will be better anyway than in a bad one...

Erik,

Early in my journey I had Sennheiser HD414s that made great recordings like Workingman’s Dead or Pentangle sound amazingly detailed, but my beloved Chess reissues in the Real Folk Blues series by Muddy, Wolf, Sonny Boy, etc were harsh and unpleasant. I got a pair of Stax SR5 electrostatic phones, and lo and behold, not only did the great recordings sound even better, but the mono lo-fi Chess records lost their harshness and the music came through, warts and all.  And it wasn’t for lack of detail but smooth flat response and no distortion. Mayb3 the warmth bump didn’t hurt!

I owned the Stax SR5 gold...

One of the best "timbre" experience in headphone...Low cost other Stax did not have this natural timbre...I dont know for the higher models as Omega and few under it...

I got a pair of Stax SR5 electrostatic phones, and lo and behold, not only did the great recordings sound even better, but the mono lo-fi Chess records lost their harshness and the music came through, warts and all.  And it wasn’t for lack of detail but smooth flat response and no distortion.