So how can a great system solve less than great recordings

@r_f_sayles 

"..but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured"

That's just it.

I think thought that digital manipulation of sound is a lot more difficult when it comes to audio than when it comes to images.

However when I took a good look at some initially impressive digitally enhanced family photographs it began to look as if it was more of a case of diverting attention rather than any extra resolution. 

Therefore I'd say that image enhancement works better when it comes to removing damage than it does to actually adding resolution.

Perhaps remastering works on the same way? Once you have the lowest generation master tape - the best you can do is to try to remove damage.

The rest is simply case of diverting attention. A practice which has led to the disastrous dynamics crushing 'loudness wars' as well as sometimes adding gross treble artefacts (new, improved etc)

Here's an article that describes how enhancement seems to work.


https://www.lumenera.com/blog/the-truth-about-enhancing-images-what-s-possible-and-what-s-not

Mr Sayles
have great respect for your knowledge.  I may revisit vinyl someday but thats a financial rabit hole i want to stay away from.   For now i am staying content with the streaming side.

@ghdprentice: 

"I have always been very careful to navigate my evolving system towards greater fidelity but to stay slightly back from ultra detailed / revealing. One step to far and many recordings sound bad... there are at least two kinds of bad... lack of dynamics and noisy harsh. I am very turned off by noisy / harsh. I want to listen to the music not the system... I want an emotional connection with the music, not to be sure I clearly hear the 2nd violinist move his foot"

+1 

I listen to music that I love, not the fidelity of a recording for the sake of its sound. The very idea of Audiophile recordings makes me disgusted. My kit is very resolving with a Brinkmann Balance, OTL amplifiers, and field-coiled loudspeakers. Now do I hear that some recordings are better than others? Sure! Do I wish some of my favorites sounded better? Also, a sure thing! Now I find that say, a line-contact cartridge, setup properly with good SRA and zenith alignment, and having a “right” pressing makes a huge difference, perhaps a decided one, but I never pursue sound over performance and my particular music favorites. Never(.) Often this way of retrieval reduces the noise and dramatically increases the fidelity, but there are no simple and universal answers. Guess that’s why I bristle at the idea of being an audiophile. There may well be more forgiving equipment in its portrayal and yet still be highly resolving, but you can’t fix what wasn’t captured.

Now playing one of my two Better Records. Yes, it is a big step up.
OK, they are worth it. Now more than ever! Goes from the sound of humans to the sound of G-d. A religious experience.
But I still look forward to every “regular” record.

That is my experience as well. When listening to my "regular" records it is real easy to be happy. Beyond happy. They sound wonderful! Especially sometimes when the system is really nice and warm and sounding good, it is easy to think, "How much better can it get?"

But then I put on a White Hot Stamper and instantly, "What were you thinking???!" lol! They are totally better! Even though some like Silk Degrees the noise level on my Hot Stamper is so much worse than my "regular" copy - which actually is a Half Speed Mastered audiophile pressing, and pretty good. But the Hot Stamper is so much better sound quality I just have to put up with the noise, it is so worth it.

My Super Hot copy of Sinatra-Basie is so good the last guy here said it was the best he ever heard anything, anywhere. Well who am I to argue? ;)

It just goes to show how hard this is, how many variables, a lot of them no one would ever imagine could matter. Then you put on two examples of the exact same record and they sound completely different. After a while you begin to realize just how hard it is to even be sure when you say "recording" if you really are hearing the recording, or the pressing of the recording, or the particular copy of the pressing of the recording or....?

@riaa_award_collectors_on_facebook

re: "It would pay to do your "homework" as to what recordings sound best for each title you want in your collection".

Very good idea-- not so easy to put into practice!

I've given up on S. Hoffman forums as one never knows what sort of system participants have or what they consider to be good sound. 

I followed some recommendations based on their "shoot-outs" and was disappointed. 

Really, the only truly reliable source of "recommendation" is one's own ears, listening to one's own system. 

Everything starts with the source material. Anything after the source material is just masking shortcomings in the original material. While some equipment will help with the overall sound, I think you know how important the source material is. I haven't read all of the posts, but I'm sure people have given SOME good advice!

Introducing my Woodsong Garrard 301 inspired me to upgrade every other component. It may not be the best but it has a drive and life-like sound that is addictive. Especially now with the Lyra, Triplanar arm and Atma-Sphere MP-1. The $28K MP-1 is among the only uber preamp that was designed to be full featured with phono stage dedicated to the ultimate vinyl playback.
With my AGD Audion mono blocks and Tetra 606 speakers, even with formerly poor recordings, I am in Audio nervana.

Lyra, a 13k cartridge, impressive. I suspect turntable kinda nice too.

Yes, it was $13K, but the improvement in SQ with the Lyra Atlas SL makes ALL my record collection great. By pulling out so much information out of the groves, I love every LP. Sure, the rest of my front end is a match but a world class cartridge has brought a world class sound.
Now playing one of my two Better Records. Yes, it is a big step up.
OK, they are worth it. Now more than ever! Goes from the sound of humans to the sound of G-d. A religious experience.
But I still look forward to every “regular” record.

   It would pay to do your "homework" as to what recordings sound best for each title you want in your collection. If you primarily spin CD's like yours truly you will discover that Original pressings in most cases are far and away better sounding than "REMASTERED" crapola from the past 30 years. Of course there are exceptions. Steve Wilson, Rhino Records and others are doing incredible work remixing/mastering master tapes from the 70's and 80's but thats less than 1% of whats out there.  Its a pain in the ass BUT it would be worth your while to get others opinions (Like on the Steve Hoffman forums as mentioned above). See what others are saying...then go to DISCOGS or EBAY and find those "best" pressings and slowly build your collection a piece at a time.  If your using a streaming service you arent going to get those original masters/mixes from back in the day. Your going to get the overly compressed/brickwalled/loudness crap that has plagued the music industry since the 90's.  Im sure for music made in the past 20-25 years the streaming services are as good as anything your going to get on physical media.  Always surprised how many people spend a small fortune on gear/cables/stands etc and then feed their systems inferior recordings when better ones are available. Makes no sense to me.

cd318

"Sometimes, on certain albums, it’s just bewildering how they came to make such appalling mastering choices in the studio".
 
Yes, indeed. .  . and "remasters" are all over the map in terms of "improvement" in SQ! 

Discs that are truly "appalling" don't stay in the collection.

Having said that, some of my old favorites, such as "Exile On Main Street", "Layla" and "Europe '72" are never going to sound stellar but because I simply cannot do without this music, I've found the versions that sound the least offensive to me and utilize the Loki to make them listenable. 

I've never tried Audacity. Twisting the four knobs on the Loki is about as technical as I care to get!  

@stuartk ,

Agreed. On a couple of occasions I have put tracks through the open source Audacity software to add a little treble to those which seem to desperately be lacking treble.

It’s a bit of a long-winded process of trial and error to see where the sweet spot in adjustment lies - add too much and you start to lose even more resolution elsewhere.

Sometimes, on certain albums, it’s just bewildering how they came to make such appalling mastering choices in the studio.

You wouldn’t want to remaster your entire collection, but once in a while it could be worth the effort to DIY.

jumia

Of course not. . . 

.  . . but an EQ might make enough of a difference to move something from the "unlistenable" to the "listenable" category. 

Should this matter to you?

If there's music you really love that's only available in a format with relatively poor SQ, it might. 

I've found the under $200 Schiit Loki useful in this regard. 

Dont think an EQ stands a chance to improve recording quality.  

Most systems owners, even those with extremely expensive esoteric systems, have never heard completely flawless sound reproduction.  It is a fantastic jaw dropping experience, and a life changing event.  I've heard a lot of systems but let's talk about "really good" systems then, to be realistic. If you get a crappy recording, you will hear all its defect BETTER.  It might be more objectionable.  You might never listen to an mp3 again.  When you put on a good recording, you will always hear some defect.  Nothing is perfect.  It depends on the resolution of your system.  You will enjoy it more.  So in conclusion, you will throw out more junk and appreciate the good stuff and enjoy it more. 90% of my record collection was junk. Which is more important, systems or media?  Neither. 

I would guess you need two systems. Or atleast an EQ.
The better system you have, the worse those crap recordings will sound.

fi·del·i·ty/fəˈdelədē/
1 - faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support. Eg: "he sought only the strictest fidelity to justice”.
similar: Loyalty allegiance obedience constancy fealty homage staunchness
2 - the degree of exactness with which something is copied or reproduced."the 1949 recording provides reasonable fidelity"
I don’t see much in the way of truth here. You can be faithful to a lie, as our political culture has resoundingly demonstrated. So, as a general rule, what purpose does a conflation between loyalty and “truth” serve? 

As a philosophical matter, I take issue with the word truth. I am of the POV that there is no such thing as knowing the truth. We can only know more of the truth. We can get “truthier”. It’s a never ending search.

Audiophiliacs are what we call those people who are obsessively connected to this search through their ears.

That aside:


As others have already said, the best that a good audio system can do is to reproduce what is in the recording (and, in my case, in the grooves) with the greatest accuracy as possible.

As a general rule, this makes almost all records - at least in my system - sound “better”: or, different, in the direction of having more information being revealed. As we all hear differently, it sounds “better” to me, but maybe you don’t like the information being revealed, so maybe not to you.

If the system is “good” enough, you can hear the decisions of the engineer, “good” or “bad”, and the limitations of the technology that he or she was using. I’ve learned to regard this as often than not as part of the charm of the recording, but that usually means that the content itself is not much more than a curiosity and I’m not listening to it that much.

But if it is a poorly engineered/pressed - or simply not to my liking in some manner - record that is a favorite, especially if it’s one from my youth (I’m thinking Beggars Banquet by the Stones as a prime example, or Canto General by Theodorakis/Neruda), I’m a non-purist black cat white cat as long as you catch the mouse sorta guy. The engineer in the studio makes decisions: if he made (subjective) decisions that I don’t like, I have no problem making the decision to try to correct them on the playback end. I have a “phase alignment correction” thingy and a consequence of kicking it in and dialing things up or down is that it adds dimension, depth, and presence. I’m also able to dial the cartridge one way or the other at the preamp stage in order to reduce harshness.

Because in the end, for me, since there’s only “truthier”, and because the recording engineers decisions are subjective, and because we all hear differently, and because the stamper might have worn out, etc etc yaowzza, the “search” is not for the truth, but rather for the most enjoyable experience of the artist’s intentions that I am able to pull out of the grooves. In other words, I think the search is governed by Freud’s pleasure principle rather than Plato’s objectivity. And if we all here are honest with ourselves, I think that’s what most of us through this hobby are actually searching for as well: a pleasurable truthiness (or rather, a truthy pleasure).

For my analog only system, by getting more out of the groves, each upgrade improves my enjoyment. Surely, even unlistenable LPs prior sound good now and, yes, good recordings sound even better.
This is the case for front end and other upgrades.

To help old Millercarbonfootprint understand my point, I think a great system helps everything you run through it...if a recording is simply poorly done, it still is given its best shot and being made aware of the issues with a recording is an important thing. Get it? You do...good boy!

Nothing to do with "great systems", but I have a double pole, double throw switch to bypass my sub crossover.  This allows a lot of harmonics to be added to make up for how horrible many old LP's sound.

OP. I'm going to disagree with you. I say that you know your system is great when mediocre recording sound "good" and great recordings sound great. I had a Krell KPS20i way back when. The system it was connected to was so good most CD's (not bootlegs of course) sounded at the very least enjoyable. I remember The Turtles sounding like I was in the studio with them. I no longer have any of those components. The Turtles haven't sounded the same since. Joe

Short answer. No.

Whatever you put into the system, will come out the other end with with wonderful clarity. Worts and all will be presented in their full glory. The better the system, the more obvious the shortcomings of the material is. 
Put a cell phone in the bathtub (dry tub preferred), play some different tracks. Close the door and stand outside.  It will all sound equally crappy… 

jumia;

"It seems no matter how good a system is, the quality of recording quality takes priority".  

"Good" according to whom???? 

You can assume that the more resolving your system, the more it will reveal the differences between recordings and highlight both the good and the bad. 

You are the one who is going to be listening to your system and only you know which music is most important to you. There's little point in assembling a system that sounds sublime for genres you don't care about but is disappointing when it comes to what you really love. 

For example, I've found that DACs vary enormously in this regard.Some are so resolving that all sense of the "forest" is lost because each "tree" is artificially hyped. . .never mind each tree--  more like every vein on every  leaf!  A lot of people seem to really like this effect. I'm not one of them. Maybe you do, but if not, there are other ways to go. That's the double-edged sword of this  obsession... er, I meant, "hobby"-- there's a lot of gear to choose from. 

There are also trends in recording. In the 80's, it was "cool" to make drums sound like trash cans being pounded inside a cement bunker. 
Good luck making those sound good. Or maybe you like that... if so, I don't mean to insult you-- this was merely the first example that popped into my head. The fact is, whatever your tastes, you are bound to encounter CDs that do not please your ears, for one reason or another. Finally, "remastering" is not necessarily an improvement. Check out the Steve Hoffman Forums for discussion on the relative merits of different versions of any given CD. 

Thanks audiorusty,
I have always shied away from any signal processing. Even tone controls. I don't even have a separate phono stage using the one built in to my preamp. K.I.S.S.

Sinatra recordings are quite good, beatles sadly not that great at times.  Kinda disappointing they didnt do better.  
My older system did better with beatles but the speaker cones decayed ........

revealing systems dont do well with highly mixed older tunes like the beatles.  

@audioguy85,


"Some of my best recordings are from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They knew how to record and master back then, today it is mostly a lost art and most remasters suck in my opinion."



Good points.

It had to be an art back then because of the huge number of variables involved.

All the way from different studios, microphones, mixing desks, tape decks, cutting lathes etc.

Year after year superficial reissues and remasters keep on coming with great fanfare but eventually the usual consensus settles on the originals being the best.

There's hardly ANY reissue today that doesn't suffer from some compression of dynamics. 

They just cannot help but tinker and as a result something valuable has often been lost.

How many times is it the case that the 'period feel' of the recording is the first thing to go.

Do we really want Caruso, Callas, Crosby, Sinatra etc to sound as if they were recorded yesterday?

Thank you very much but I want my music to sound the way it was intended to. As much as I admire the Vic Anesini Elvis remasters they don't sound sound like the Elvis I grew up with.

Close, but not quite.

So just how many reissues of the Beatles, the Kinks, the Doors, Dylan etc do we need before they actually deliver an actual all round definitive improvement? 

Until they actually do this, all that ANY system can do is to increasingly highlight this tinkering.

It's hardly surprising that so many music demos feature a carefully chosen but rather limited repertoire, is it?

Even worse, this tinkering is hardly ever designed for high performance audio systems.

Is it also any wonder that once the novelty has worn off that mounting disappointment gradually brings home the reality that so many of the 1980s CD transfers are still the best along with the original vinyl transfers?

Put simply, it's rather pointless to flog a dead horse.

The recordings matter more than the system, and the considerable  differences between them can only be magnified by better playback gear.

"Some of my best recordings are from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They knew how to record and master back then, today it is mostly a lost art and most remasters suck in my opinion."

How right you are Audioguy85!!

Me too, give me an original Decca or EMI pressing every time.

Today's problem is digital offers producers and engineers the opportunity to tinker.  They just can't resist it.  So in most cases everything that was good about the original recording is corrupted 'we need a bit of heightened this or toned down that'.

This applies equally to today's new recordings in which the digital desk is ever present under the hand of the engineer who loves to fiddle, thinking that such tech wisdom as he may have knows better than the musicians who created the performance.

JUST LEAVE IT ALONE.

A live performance (at least of acoustic instruments) doesn't contain any engineer corruption.  So, if you want to reproduce it accurately, dump the engineer, or at least tie his hands.

How does the great system know which recordings to make sound a lot better, and which to sound only a little better? And how does it know what is better?

A great system should naturally make everything sound a little better or a lot better...sort of the point.

You may want to add something like this to your system.

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/8803EQ--ams-neve-8803-dual-channel-eq?mrkgadid=3341928534&am...

Just celebrated my 50th year of audiophilia.
With some luck, dedication and, gratefully, this Forum I have evolved my analog only system to a place where there is no such thing as an unlistenable record. All are enjoyable... some more than others.
The most significant evolution came with the addition of my AGD Audions. They were brought to my attention by several Forum member’s rave comments. Then, checking the reviewers, they constantly use the rare phrase “best regardless of price”. I was inspired to order a pair. Unbelievable! Not only the “right on” tone and SQ, I hear something never heard. I hear the musician’s phrasing. Music is made up of phrases tied together. To clearly hear the beginning, end and nuance-the humanness! I always liked Ella but only now do I fully understand her greatness hearing her phrasing. And this critical essence of music is evident in every record. For sure, my speakers, front end, cables and power all contribute. But the real change came with AGD.

I have always been very careful to navigate my evolving system towards greater fidelity but to stay slightly back from ultra detailed / revealing. One step to far and many recordings sound bad... there are at least two kinds of bad... lack of dynamics and noisy harsh. I am very turned off by noisy / harsh. I want to listen to the music not the system... I want an emotional connection with the music, not to be sure I clearly hear the 2nd violinist move his foot. 
Realizing this was critical on my turn to a far greater musically satisfying system. You can get caught up in perpetually evaluating sound and forget what the point was. So I am pretty sure @Mahler123 and I would react completely differently to equipment. We have two completely different design goals.

All I know is good quality mono recordings still sound like the performers are playing live in my room with my Ohm Walsh speaker setup. This setup has opened me up to so many older recordings that I would probably not pay much attention to otherwise. The best for bringing old mono recordings to life. Example: remastered Muddy Waters CD recordings originally from the 50s. He is there in the room. Not too shabby with stereo either. Coherency and carefully managed wide dispersion in the unique Ohm Walsh CLS design pays off!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/9mMf2dXS51F1oGH1A

OP, good topic. To restate your points:
1. High fidelity systems currently don't make up for problems in the source material. Rather, HiFi systems can emphasize problems in production and mastering.
2. Remastering has not solved all the problems in the original production and mastering. 

I wonder if AI upscaling/upsampling in audio is the next step in remastering. I believe that we could begin to see an AI upscaler/upsampler improve poor recordings in ways that past remastering efforts hasn't. Also, I believe that an AI upscaler/upsampler could fit into an existing HiFi system. 

The strides in AI upscaling in the video space could show us the possibilities in the audio space. We've had video upscalers in TV's and receivers for a while, and older versions of upscaling have been impressive for past TV resolution standards. But with the release of 4k TVs (and soon 8k TVs), upscalers haven't kept up. Most receiver manufacturers seem to have 4k upscaling limited to taking 1080i up to 4k. Anything lower than 1080i is SOL. Many TVs today don't even have upscaling anymore. And the quality among the 4k upscalers in receivers and TV is all over the place. 

The best 4k upscaler available right now is from Nvidia, in their Shield TV streamer. It combines traditional upscaling tech with their own AI tech. Nvidia, which was a computer graphics card company, found itself on the right side of history when graphics cards became the best tools for AI research. And their Shield TV streamer arguably started as a streaming box to allow Nvidia graphics card owners to stream their games across their home networks, from the computer in the office to their TV. At the intersection of AI and consumer streamers, Nvidia is the clear leader in home video upscaling. Here's an example of what Nvidia upscaling can do. Make sure to view it on a high res screen:
https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/shield/sliders/ai-upscaling/

I know that the HiFi space has some companies that dabble in upsampling. My understanding is that the quality varies widely and that current upsampling offers another audio flavor rather than something so convincing that we leave the upsampling button toggled on. 

But some Nvidia level upsampling could arrive in the HiFi space, one day. The market for high fidelity audio lags behind the market for home cinema, and, as a result, the biggest companies have largely left the HiFi market underserved. Also, due to the software requirements for upsampling, the more boutique a company, the less likely that company is to maintain it's own software and make advancements in audio upsampling. (NAD and Roon strike me and the best pieces of software in HiFi right now.) Here are my takes on where impressive upsampling may one day come from:
1. The home theater space expands its interest into quality audio. (Nah... who am I kidding.)
2. FPGA-based DACs provide the inroad to opensource software, engaging a community of software hobbyists in audio. (Wouldn't it be great if PS Audio or Chord opened up their software to their communities? I should make an effort to pitch this idea to these companies. As an analog, the video game Skyrim was one of the biggest video games of the last decade. Part of the reason for Skyrim's success was because it's smaller developer, Bethesda, opened up its code to the gaming community for modding. That approach turned out to be wildly successful, and allowed Bethesda to compete with the bigger developers like EA and Ubisoft.)
3. The big streaming platforms (in both video and audio) perform the upsampling to their streams. I see this as the endgame. But just like Apple Music and Spotify waited until now to release a CD quality tier, these big players likely won't provide upsampling until they are forced to, or until they can easily check that marketing box. 

"Fidelity by the way means truth. High fidelity means highly truthful. Does not mean good. Truth ain’t always pleasant to hear now, is it?"

Dead on MC. And I think the current take away from this discussion is clear - no system can make a lousy recording sound good and any system that does will likely make truly good recordings sound bad.

But what appears to be missing from this discussion is mention of all that happens AFTER the recording is finished. Great recordings poorly mastered sound terrible! I just found a great copy of Neil Young's After The Gold Rush that is a true demo disc. I've had 3 other copies and none of them sounded remotely as good as this one. If you only heard a bad one, which if you consider the odds is fairly likely, then you'd think it wasn't a great recording, which it is.

The fact is, audiophiles such as ourselves need the right records to play first, then we can make the choices about our systems necessary to make those records sound the way they should. That is, IMO, the way forward in audio. And that's why analog is so special! 

If you're interested in more of I have a lot of content on this very subject here:

https://www.thebrokenrecord.net/category/mastering/

Mediocre, bad or not so ideal recordings can sound confused, lacking in life and in some cases are barely listenable in lesser systems.
Same material on a better system transforms to something with a meaning with an easy to follow performance and substance.
Compared to the majesty of what a great recording offers they are lacking but at the same time you realize that your music collection has grown considerably.

I think that a lot of music is produced for radio or mid-fin listeners.
Someone has to be particularly focused on producing audiophile quality for it to happen. Since the audiophile community is a small percentage of the audience it isn't a big priority.
Most music I used to like seems to have little dynamic range and limited use of soundstage and imaging.. Sadly I often play music I'm only half into because it is recorded really well and sounds great.

Some of my best recordings are from the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. They knew how to record and master back then, today it is mostly a lost art and most remasters suck in my opinion. So, in answering the question in regards to making old recordings sound better, they already do sound better! Let's take Nancy Sinatra's LP County My Way for instance....I do not think it can be bettered....it sounds simply gorgeous on my system. 

My goal for a system is accuracy.  If the original recording source was poor, I prefer the system that reveals that.
if I want a system that buries that under a pile of distortion and artifact, I would go back into vinyl 

Why do you imagine a great system can make a poor recording better??

A great system reproduces accurately what is in the groove/pits, that's all.

If you want to go that way, get some new-fangled digital enhancer that makes the recording sound more like what you want to dial in.
And kills the soul of the music.

Sometimes it's that old 60's Dansette record player that gets the best out of a recording because it doesn't faithfully reproduce everything. Also if you are of a certain age, that's how you remember hearing it :^)

One can only put so much lipstick on a pig.

If you've great equipment, it will only make an old recording....sound really bad really well. *L*

I can eq only so far, process to a certain degree, but....

In the end...what one starts with is what one gets to listen to. *sigh*
Beyond that, one is at the mercy of 'remastering', and all that.
"They" have the really nice toys to knock the dust off of what was once what we recall.....and we all should remember how fallible memory can be, and how it be disappointed so easily when one revisits the past. ;)

MHO....you're free to have your own. 

Forward....into the past, J

I agree with jbirdman333. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, even with very expensive equipment. Just this past Saturday, when I played a Rolling Stones compilation - hits from 1964 - 1970 - I thought "Sympathy For the Devil", one of my favorites, sounded awful. I could hardly hear Jagger's lyrics over the instruments. So I got a "remastered" CD of the single album, Beggars Banquet, overnight from Amazon. It sounded much better - I could hear Jagger's lyrics more clearly than on the compilation CD.  It just showed me that it basically boils down to the quality of the  recorded source material, no matter how good the equipment is downstream.  I have now ordered several other remastered Rolling Stones CD's to see (hear) whether the single albums outranked the same cuts on the poorly recorded compilation album.

@jumia,

Poorer older quality cooms from a qobuz stream.  
Is older stuff handled well by qobuz?

I'm not a streamer, so can't help on this.

That's an entirely different subject (new thread?), in terms of streaming services, high-res vs. xxx, and the real issue you're looking for... finding and identifying good digital source material. Different mastering, alternate recordings, and which content providers have more variety and higher-quality material. Must be lots of info on this forum, including some recent threads I believe.

Of course many may be drinking adult style drinks, and i am not inclined so maybe therein lies a consideration.

so some and probably many may be listening in an altered state.  
so is this being true to the audiophile lifestyle,are there rules?

Set up a mono turntable using a true mono cartridge such as a Miyajima Zero. You may be quite surprised that mono can surpass stereo LP's.

@mapman

Perhaps those who have heard well made digitally remastered versions of those otherwise obtuse early mono releases on phono. 😉

the point being of course that those early mono recordings were never obtuse; they simply required the proper tools to access them. and agree that digital transfers from the tapes is one of those tools.

while those digital transfers (which i listen to too) don’t get close to a proper mono cartridge reading (or the tape itself), they are still an example of the idea of a great system helping to access music thought to be less than great.