No you are not right.
Recording and mastering quality varies according to the provenance of the Master tapes used. Earlier generations are usually better, but a lot depends on aging and wear and tear, alignment issues etc
Then it's down to how they were mastered and by whom and what equipment they used. A lot of recordings since 1990 have suffered from too much radio friendly compression and are revealed as victims of the loudness wars when played on a full bandwidth system. They often sound lifeless and have squashed dynamics. Hence the use of sites like Dynamic Range Database.
http://dr.loudness-war.info
Last but not least the format of choice (vinyl, CD, SACD, Download).
Luckily you shouldn't have to worry too much about a recording unless it's a particularly bad recording. Steve Hoffman Forums is a good place to start but beware that even there consensus is often hard to find.
This is strange seeing how we audiophiles normally agree on most issues. Sorry.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/forums/music-corner.2/
The real problems begin if you want to hear Elvis or the Beatles as they sounded originally!
The great news is that there's never been a better time price wise to buy CDs.
Recording and mastering quality varies according to the provenance of the Master tapes used. Earlier generations are usually better, but a lot depends on aging and wear and tear, alignment issues etc
Then it's down to how they were mastered and by whom and what equipment they used. A lot of recordings since 1990 have suffered from too much radio friendly compression and are revealed as victims of the loudness wars when played on a full bandwidth system. They often sound lifeless and have squashed dynamics. Hence the use of sites like Dynamic Range Database.
http://dr.loudness-war.info
Last but not least the format of choice (vinyl, CD, SACD, Download).
Luckily you shouldn't have to worry too much about a recording unless it's a particularly bad recording. Steve Hoffman Forums is a good place to start but beware that even there consensus is often hard to find.
This is strange seeing how we audiophiles normally agree on most issues. Sorry.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/forums/music-corner.2/
The real problems begin if you want to hear Elvis or the Beatles as they sounded originally!
The great news is that there's never been a better time price wise to buy CDs.