Mixed Results from My Hifi

Why are so many of you answering without actually clicking on his System page? Look at the system. Look at the room. The issue he's having is most certainly not with the production quality of the CD's. It is stemming from the system, and its interplay with the room.

Your combination of the Rotel CDP with the Krell amp and the B&W speakers will sound exactly as you described in many rooms, and by the small peek we're getting at yours, I suspect that your setting it is only exacerbating your problems. I am no expert on room acoustics. Others can chime in. I think you ought to start with some room treatments. Maybe a rug on the floor. Absolutely throw a soft cover over that plexiglass sheet that's on your audio rack, at least when you're listening to music. I would also consider a change in speakers. In my opinion, having heard the 7 and 9NT's several times, they do not produce a rounded, full-range sound necessary to convey pop/rock music to your satisfaction. Another option is to get a more full sounding CD player. Can you bump up your budget a little? In my opinion, you are pushing the limits of potential harshness with every component in your system,
including the cables, and most definitely including the room.

FWIW, we have very large horn speakers and a 200W SS amp/tube preamp, and I can play every single CD in our 1000+ collection, and NOT ONE sounds harsh, congested, or remotely unlistenable. Having spent thousands of hours in recording studios, I will agree that there is a vast range in production quality. However, Coldplay & Sheryl Crow could hardly be considered as crowded or congested arrangements in the first place. And they're production caliber is top notch. More often, if something is going to hiss at you, it would be as heavily guitar track-laden as Husker Du or Jane's Addiction. Definitely not the case with those artists you mentioned.

Your room, your components. Not the CDs.

If his happy with other recordings, then why change anything for the few bad ones?

From his initial post: "But mass produced pop and rock are almost unlistenable." I took this to indicate that the three recordings he listed were but a few examples of a problem affecting a wide range of music. Maybe I've interpreted this incorrectly. I've heard all three of these CD's, and have never found them unlistenable from a sonics perspective. The components in his system, however, are highly likely to produce exactly the compressed, digital sound he describes, and only made worse by that room.

Some recordings are better than others, that's for certain. But the recording does not by itself go from sounding balanced in the mastering studio to unlistenable in your home without the compromising effect of your audio system, which most importantly includes the space in which you are listening. Do you honestly think that all of these above-mentioned artists make a $500K recording only to then find it to be unlistenable on their own stereo? Methinks not.