Recording quality...

Case in point...when I purchase a recording, I'm looking for a recording date within the last five years.

That's ridiculous. 

mikeydee, you’re not crazy. I know what you’re talking about. Newer albums can have a clarity and level of detail that many older recordings do not have. Recording technology and techniques have improved in some ways over the years, and have declined in some ways too. Some albums are recorded with the improved tech and technique, some with the damaging tech and technique.

Recording tape does deteriorate over time and with repeated playback. This can be heard on many older albums. Also, there were many badly recorded albums released 40 to 50 years ago. Many gems but a lot of junk, just like today.

Some people are not offended by moderate compression and there are plenty of more recent albums (last 30 years) that have been recorded with reasonable or even admirable levels of compression.

There is a lot of good music that has been recorded digitally and is available only on cd. If your ears can’t take that, that’s OK, but you’re missing some good music.

Good comment, @tomcy6 .

Over the years, like many people, I purchased remastered Rock CD’s to replace my original releases only to find that they were fatiguing and compressed.
Now that I have a higher-end transport/DAC setup, I am appreciating the sonics of the original CD’s. In general, there is more separation of instruments, natural decay, and more realistic sounding highs. It’s too bad that as digital production and mastering technology improved, the movement to add high amounts of compression in the recording and mastering chain came about.

I search the Steve Hoffman forum to find the best releases of CD and vinyl and then go to Discogs, where one can find used disks by their release date and country of origin. Now, I’m actually replacing my CD’s again with better versions.

With Classical, I own many modern CD and vinyl recordings, but I seek out older recordings, not only for the great performances and legendary conductors, but for the realism that minimal mic’ing can reproduce. This is probably the only time I look to buy a remaster, since many Classical labels take great care in restoring old recordings.

We could also take this discussion in a different direction...what is it about mixing, microphone placement, room acoustics, etc. that make for an amazing recording, regardless of time period?  

Those of us around in the late 70s remember Steely Dan's album "AJA" (recorded at Village Recorders in West LA).  It actually won a Grammy for best-engineered album.  The sound quality was amazing (I had it on vinyl).

 Also, different studios to the trained ear sound different.  Those of you who love jazz remember the Blue Note sessions that Rudy Van Gelder recorded in Englewood Cliffs NJ.  You could tell it was his studio by the sound...his piano also had a distinctive sound to it.

Fast forward to the 90s and listen to the Natalie Cole album "Unforgettable"...give it a listen just for the amazing recording, even if you don't like the music.  This was recorded at the Capitol Rotunda in Hollywood, where Sinatra made all of his famous recordings in the 50s.  

And then there's Motown Studio A (I went to see it...now a museum) and let's not forget Sigma Sound, run by Joe Tarsia in Philly (which is now an office building...should have been preserved as a museum as well).  David Bowie came all the way to Philadelphia to record "Young Americans" at Sigma  because he loved the studio's sound.   

So, I get what a lot of you are saying.  My five-year window is robbing me of all of these studios which had a distinctive sound.  You can't get that aspect using Pro Tools or whatever else they use today. 

More and more I am getting convinced that a difference in recording quality is far more important than the difference in sound quality between high end components. In other words, you may spent thousands of dollars on upgrading your system, which would be a simple waste of time (and money) unless you have good  enough  quality recordings, whereas the difference in sound between a good and bad recordings is much more notable, no matter whether you use 1k, 2k, 5k or 10k or higher price amp or cd player (you still need good speakers though).  I think this is an important issue. 

As to the quality of the recordings, not always more recent recording have better quality, in general, and many analog recordings, especially classical ones, are better than more recent digital ones (counting good labels). Early (analog) Miles Davis recordings (late 50s and 60s) are far better than late 60s and 70s (analog) recordings, and even some of the 80s digital ones. For my taste, some late Pat Metheny recordings (2010 and above) are worse in quality than earlier ones (from 90s to, say, 2010). Early ELP recordings also sound better than later ones. I am curious why this happens (e.g., did Miles Davis himself did not note this  (by the way, he used 70s AR speakers)?)

Was just thinking of all of those classic albums that I've bought in every new or remastered or improved format hoping for and sometimes getting an even better aural image of music I've loved for years...Abbey Road, Aja, Child Is Father To The Man, lately the hi rez Pink Floyd remasters of Meddle, Obscured By Clouds, etc...and other than Steven Wilson's magic on Tull,Yes, XTC, Supertramp, King Crimson, etc, the majority of the versions that left me smiling were from very hi resolution rips from newly pressed high quality vinyl...not sure how your 5 year window applies given the provenance of the various versions but this is what comes to mind for me when I think of recording quality in general. Of course, the ECM releases, many of the old DG, Phillips, etc classical releases can be game changers in terms of sound quality as well...