The Most Digital Recording You Ever Heard


You can generally tell them by weight. In the early days of the CD when they really had no idea of how to put music on a disk they also used to put a lot of plastic in the jewel cases. Sometimes I pick a CD I haven't listened to for a while, get a feel of it and think, "Oh, one of these." Any initial release year starting with "198" will give you a certain sense of trepidation. The question I put before the house is, what was the digital recording that your view epitomized everything that was wrong with digital. Some that come off the top of my head:

Any Proper box set.
Any Collector's Choice reissue.
The original issue of These Foolish Things by Bryan Ferry.

The Angel Broadway Classics series was particularly frustrating because on the one hand you finally escape from fake stereo but on the other the mastering was pretty sketchy.
 
heretobuy
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Even the recordings from the early 80s that I didn’t take to back in the day sound very listenable on good modern playback equipment.  We are truly living in a Golden Age of Digital Sound 
unison77
Yello ’Touch’ sounds nauseatingly ’digital’ in my gear - the recording is harsh with exaggerated sibilance in female voice...

Zero harshness or sibilance or digitus in Yello’s ’Touch’ when played in my rig. Smooth as silk.  Female vocals sound pristine.  Clean power is the key!
Unfortunately threw aware my Garrard 401 / SME, in some strange fit, not unhappy re giving up vinyl but very unhappy about what it could be sold for. I had replaced all my favourite records with CD's because the vinyl sound with clicks and pops drove me crazy. I have good CD's and poor CD's but no pops and crackles. Recently went to favourite HiFi store and listened to $100,000 vinyl set up, you guessed it, it still had pops and crackles, sorry but I cannot compare even the worst CD with vinyl.
In the early 80s, I bought a top of the line Denon CD player, and got a cd copy of Led Zeppelin 4.  I listened to it, then compared it to my vinyl copy (Logic DM101 tt, Signet tonearm, Monster Alpha cartridge).  I don't think I bought another CD until 1989 when I got a Mazda RX7 that had a CD player.