What are the characteristics quality recordings?

I think another part of the equation is the arrangement of songs or segments in the recording. To me a good recording unfolds something like a well written story.It has something to do with tension and congruity. An example of a bad recording in this respect and in my opinion are those Best of compilations where someone has decided to throw together what they consider to be the best efforts of a given group or artists. I suppose it is not an entirely fair criticism because obviously if a group or artist have been recording for a long time the sound quality of individual tracks will vary considerably. But what I find more difficult to listen to are the way these selections are set together. To me there is almost a disregard for the work they represent, and I find this often enough that I could dare say it. It is almost as if the producers of these arrangements are saying that because the whole of these selections were popular that it really does not matter how they are thrown together. pretty trivial? I suppose. I am suprised to write that it does matter to me as criteria for well presented work.

As Timf says, the sequence of selections can be very important. This is most evident in the area of Classical music. How would Mozart's Jupiter symphony go over if you played the movements in reverse order?

From the responses you have gotten so far, I'm confused as to what aspects of the recording you are talking about. As far as the technical aspects go, I think one of the characteristics of a quality recording is that "the original dynamics of the music are preserved." A common problem with many recent CDs is that the music is normalized, compressed, etc. to make the playback volume as loud as possible. This enhances playback on portable players, jam boxes, and car stereos. However, it ruins the natural dynamics of the recording. You can look at a song with a PC using a wav file viewer, i.e. Cool Edit Pro, and easily see if this type of modification has been made. If all of the peaks throughout the music are at exactly the same level, it has obviously been modified (unless it is because of a drum machine, etc.)