Do you listen mainly to Audiophile CDs and records?

To add to that,
How much does the sound of disc, as opposed to being musically great but not so hot sonically, influence your descision on what to play?

Also, as we know, there are “audiophile” pressings that sound better than run-of- the-mill recordings that many in this forum would get greater satisfaction from.

To be clearer, Do you avoid listening to music you like, or love because it doesn’t sound good?

folkfreak:

There are wonderful, powerful historic recordings of great artists from the 30’s, 40s  and 50’s in mono, and certainly less than high quality sound that I would not want to be without, but sometimes avoid because I’d rather listen to my “system.”

Al:

I, too, have found that as I have made improvements to my system, overly bright recordings (especially with high strings) have been made more listenable.

I don’t think record companies go out of their way to make a poor sounding recording. After all, we can assume they have engineers with ears.
Generally, they have a philosophy which varies from other companies.
I feel the better resolution my system displays, the closer to the philosophy of each individual company is revealed.

Also, the philosophy of particular engineers within a company are similarly revealed.

I didn’t know the Solti Ring was released on Telefunken.  I thought it was only on London.
You are right though, when the two come together it’s bliss!

I’m happy and somewhat surprised to hear that the overwhelming majority in this thread deny that sound is a prime factor in determining what they listen to.
After all, this is an audiophile forum.  One would expect sound to play a more important part than most people admit.