GREAT MUSIC - SO POORLY RECORDED...

A CD by Uriah Heep 'Sweet Freedom' (Essential ESMCD 338) sounds nasty - excessive sibilance and cpmpression make it unlistenable.

I meant "compression"

My personal disappointment is people.
I look and see the responses to the question of "What are your personal disappointments?" to the question of " GREAT MUSIC - SO POORLY RECORDED..."
The OP makes no mention as to what the material source is that is being lamented due to limited hertz or some such. Vinyl, tape, CD, digital, analog, among the most popular sources.
At the time, when most of the music was and is recorded, it was done by people in front of the microphone as well as behind it,their best effort.
Where I am going with this, is, it is what it is. We need to live with what is available and how it is presented. The OP moved some speakers around and didn't like the result.
Every song ever sung has its merits. Or it wouldn't be here to grouse about. 20hz to 20khz is a baseline, where music is the variance. 

Elton John - such great music - such poor recordings. I have almost every vinyl reissues,180g, remastered etc etc looking for the holy grail -but always disappointed. Compare with Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez recordings (Vanguard outrageously good for the time)  which are superb for their age, and still rank best ....  such great EJ potential absolutely wasted - a crying shame.

I agree with the original poster - it is disappointing to hear great music that is poorly recorded.  We spend huge amounts of money to hear music as close to live as possible.  The artists are performing to the best of their ability, but it's a shame that because of ineptness in the recording side of the equation, we can't hear it the way it was intended.  It seems odd that some of the biggest acts don't insist on only the best engineers to assure a quality final product for their listeners.  I have many recordings by lesser known artists that sound superb.