currently listening to my favorite jazz on iPod Classic attached to just returned to me Onkyo ipod dock/cd receiver, and quite enjoying it...kind of opposite of your thread about poorly recorded music on good system, this is very well recorded music on extremely limited playback system...
The joys of mid-fi
What I’m writing about here applies to classical music but might have parallels in other music too. I’ve brought this topiic up in different ways before.
Years ago when I was blissfully ensconced in mif-fi, I could easily compare different performances of the same classical work with the confidence that the sound quality would be essentially the same. There would be no issues of soundstaging, detail, et al that would make it hard for me to compare. It was easy to judge a performance on its own merits without complicating factors. Now, it’s almost impossible to assess a performance without placing SQ into the mix. A mediocre recording might be extremely attractive due the sound alone, Conversely, a very good performance might be shunted aside as “unlistenable.”
Oh, for the good old days of mid-fi! 😁