Your system quality vs. recording quality


This is what I find frustrating.  Some recordings sound amazing, even better with a great system.   And then there are recordings that just don’t sound good.  And these recordings are from very good performers (why didn’t they put out a better quality recording?? Is it that difficult?).

A revealing system will highlight problem recordings.

No matter how much is spent on quality components, it’s very hard to make subpar recordings sound great.
A profound dilemma.




emergingsoul
Why?
It’s often serendipity. I’ve made great recordings and later poor ones with the same hardware. Practice makes for better quality. Some artists are sold a bill of goods by the producer.
Reminds me to put some mics on eBay.
Then there is the flimsy 70s vinyl that blows away some audiophile 200gram effort.
  1. It’s my belief that a lot has to do with the rooms that they are recorded in and the equipment they are using.
I do not have that problem i have at least 3 thousand classical records that sound wonderful.Among then EMI,DECCA,MERCURY,BRITISH COLUMBIA ETC.Been collecting records for over 50 years.
Well, two things. One, there are no recordings suddenly revealed to be bad by your system getting better. Mine's crazy better- and so are all my recordings. Records once though to be very run of the mill I would now have no reservations playing to impress any guest. 

And two, that's not to say they're all equally good. Its more like, when your system is truly revealing then all recordings sound great- and the ones you thought were great turn out to be downright magical.
Recordings are what they are. The big audiophile money hole is thinking the right system will make everything sound wonderful. It won’t. It can only give you more of what’s there and what’s there can vary from horrific to mesmerizing.   If most recordings make you want to listen more and not chase you away then you are in good territory. 
After listening to speakers with different dispersion patterns I'm fairly convinced that some recordings sound better with a narrower dispersion speaker, or a highly absorptive, well damped space. Other recordings seem to benefit from more ambience in the listening space. I also think it is possible for a more revealing system to make a recording that you used to like seem less enjoyable. Some recordings seem to sound no better through exotic speakers than through an old transistor table top radio. On a good system the contrast in sound quality between recordings is more striking, upping expectations and making low quality recordings more disappointing. You can't even tell stereo from mono recordings on a limited frequency response table top radio. 

I’d rather have my system reveal as much as good recordings have to offer rather than try to polish the turds out there.  For the turds, I pretty much enjoy them on my Amazon Echo or similar device deserving of such quality. 
Profoundly sad that SQ from the Beatles is not as good as it deserves. So much goodness, and remastering didnt achieve much. And yet there are albums from the past that do indeed sound quite good. Same thing can be said for Grateful Dead album SQ, although they are ok. Linda Ronstadt albums are quite good. 

Sadly, So many great albums from the 70s used to sound a lot better when the age of audiophile technological advancement and awareness had not fully arrived and was not so widespread. We may need our older systems for recordings from this past age that treated the recordings a lot better; these classic albums have no place in modern era systems.
+1 Mapman. And there is are many releases that suffer from poor recording and/or production. Some of my favorites are those recorded 'live' in the studio. 
There's been tracks i've played at the shop that had the salesman running for the volume knob, but at home the very same recording sounds great. Sometimes putting an acoustic panel at the first reflection point will save an old brittle recording, sometimes they just suck, but then why do they sound so freakin' good in my truck?
Another thing is if you’re system is in the zone and you actually like music most recordings will draw you in not chase you away.

If not then two possibilities are something needs to change and/or maybe you don’t like music as much as you think you do.
1+ @mapman  A good system makes everything sound better. I listen to some very old Louis Armstrong stuff. By modern standards it is pretty poor but just listen to him play that horn. It is like the tarnish on an old photograph. It belongs there. I also think you have to give the artist some leeway. Perhaps they want you to hear it a certain way. Listen to a Fiona Apple disc. 
For sure some recordings are better than others but your music system should play your records in a way that is satisfying to you. The goal is to have 80% of your collection sound good. If only 10% of your music sounds good, you need to work on your tune-up. 
Yes I have recordings dating back to the 1920s of all kinds in my library and I find almost all of them interesting and enjoyable in different ways because my system lets me by keeping added  noise and distortion out of the picture and just delivering the goods whatever that may be recording to recording. 
mijostyn
... A good system makes everything sound better ...
+1, @mijostyn. A good system lets you hear into the recording. We don't live in a perfect, pristine, technicolor world. If you really care about the music, the flaws in some recordings are no more than artifacts. The music can be enjoyed as a masterpiece regardless of them.