Joshua Tree

U2 sound quality has always been a little deficient. A deliberate "edge" sound to their music and poorly defined bass makes a great sound in a pub or in the car but less so on an audiophile system. Most of it has a real "garage" rough sound to it - I believe this is all intentional. Some albums are better than other - the long time Daniel Lanois collaboration is mainly responsible for this...Daniel is well respected for an amospheric or gritty sound ( rather than polished ) - he does Bob Dylan stuff too.

There is very little you can do, like the Stones - there is a roughness in the sound that U2 puts out (although the Stones did have an interlude in well recorded sound with Emotional Rescue and Tattoo You) I think Rattle & Hum is U2 at their peak.

If you prefer great sound in rock/pop then you must choose other artists (who deeply care about sound quality) and their sound engineers....Mark Knopfler/Chuck Ainlay for example. Tom Petty ( a sound fanatic). INXS (crazy about sound quality). Trevor Horn is probably the most famous engineer for his polished sound (remember Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Duran Duran Rio, Buggles Video Killed the radio Star, Grace Jones ,Seal, Simple Minds etc...all that highly polished stuff from the 80's). Alan Parsons is another famous engineer ( Pink Floyd ). An then there is Steely Dan....

Not to belabor the point, but you get the idea....IMHO Bono doesn't like being upstaged by anything or anyone ( including his backing band ) ...this may explain the U2 sound quality - nothing distracts from Bono!!!

Sometimes you just have to meet the music halfway as it is not recorded perfectly.

KiD,

I agree.

However, it can be helpful to pay attention to the guys behind the console in the studio. For example, Doug Sax made some remasters of Aersomith's first three albums (SACD came out first but they are also now available in a CD box set) These remasters are sonically far superior to the older stuff. Check out "Sweet Emotion"...you will be amazed at the sonic improvements. I have both so a direct comparison can be made.

Furthermore, Bob Ludwig has remastered the Rolling Stones, "Hot Rocks" is the name of the compilation, again this is far superior to previous Stones material. Check out "Hony Tonk Woman"....a really good remaster. (Audible distortion is still there but it wouldn't be the Stones otherwise...but the sound is much improved)

Chuck Ainlay has done great work on all of Mark Knopfler's stuff....but Mark Knopfler is only ONE of about fifty top recording artists that Chuck Ainlay has worked for.

Telarc is a label that is pretty reliable in the Classical genre - Michael Bishop and co.

These are just a few examples of how it can be helpful to invest time in getting to know who is good at recording and mastering music. It can also help to research what equipment these people use to hear what they are mix/re-mastering.

Ludwig at Gateway uses Eggleston's for example. Whilst the others that I mentioned use ATC.

Of course you select music based on your tastes....but you can often find better recordings of certain material. Frankly I own many different versions of the same material by different artists/orchestras....I expect many others do too...so it may be wise to seek out the best source material!