Rock and Roll Snobbery

Ben - I would agree that there is a lot of rock/pop released that sounds excellent. Unfortunately, I don't think it's quite as universal as you do - there are still plenty of CDs, particularly past but some present, that I find it difficult to listen to based on the quality of recording. However, there are so many good to excellent recordings that I have no problem filling my airwaves. I agree, as well, that recent releases are for the most part very good to excellent - I haven't bought much that has been mastered since, say, 1997 that isn't very good. Tool, Counting Crows, The Tragically Hip, the remasters of many classic rock bands, Dream Theater, all the Rhino anthologies, etc. etc. etc. Lots of great stuff out there.

It is often cited in these threads that you can't (shouldn't) attempt to rectify a major weakness in a component by changing something else that pulls the system in the opposite direction - ie, don't attempt to correct a bright amp by applying extra-warm speakers. If your amp is bright to the point that you really don't like the sound, you have to change the amp. So, it doesn't seem consistent to say that a poorly recorded pop album is going to sound a lot better on a mid-fi system than a high-end one. If a CD is recorded with tons of compression, as many are, it isn't going to sound good on any system, IMO. It's going to accomplish only two "positives" - you'll be able to hear all the parts of the song better in an environment with a lot of unrelated noise (ie, a car) and it will "catch" your ear more quickly wherever it's played, a phenomena most people on this site find appealing for somewhere between zero and two seconds. I find the very compressed recordings I've listened to to sound pretty horrible and fatiguing on every system, and don't find that lowering the quality of the system to make the situation any better.