Sadly, you are experiencing the reality of modern recordings. We first saw Joey Bonamassa when he was 12 years old at the Beginning II in Fremont NY during one of his dad's gigs. We have Driving Towards the Daylight on CD along with the Albert Hall and Vienna Opera House BDs. They all sound over-saturated and distorted. Most unpleasant. This was also true during the Vienna cover show he did in the Cleveland State Theater last year. Way too loud with a lot of digital artifacts.
We had noticed this phenomenon on some Todd Rundgren, Adele, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and other recent recordings, live and studio, CD and vinyl. During a Todd show a few years ago, we looked over the PA and realized he was using CAT-5 cable in the snake. That means the signal was already digitized from the snake, mixed and sent back to an active PA system with Class D amps. Could explain a lot. Other shows we've seen over the same time period (Adrian Belew, Carl Palmer, Dwezil Zappa, Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke and Tony Levin) did not exhibit this effect. They were all using traditional balanced mike cables with passive mixing board, separate amplification and passive PA speakers.
The son of a close friend runs a recording studio in Syracuse (The Square Studio - shameless plug here). He constantly complains that his clients (mostly younger hard rock and alternative acts) insist on this kind of sound. They all seem to think that more is better; overly full arrangements and nothing but sound. They claim it is necessary to get recognized by the larger labels and that it sounds better on portable devices. We do not agree with either of those contentions. Witness St. Vincent, Snarky Puppy, Nine Inch Nails and others. None of that stuff, neither when they were getting started nor now.
From our perspective, we just buy the music we like. If the recording is up-to-snuff, we sit down to the high-end rig and really get into it. If not, CDs get burned and played in the car or RV. Bad vinyl mostly just gets to look pretty in the collection. Since jazz acts seem to have a better track record on sound quality, that is where our purchase history skews. It is the compromise that usually works for us.
Know this wasn't the kind of information you were looking for, but hopefully you find it useful background. Good luck & happy listening!
We had noticed this phenomenon on some Todd Rundgren, Adele, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy and other recent recordings, live and studio, CD and vinyl. During a Todd show a few years ago, we looked over the PA and realized he was using CAT-5 cable in the snake. That means the signal was already digitized from the snake, mixed and sent back to an active PA system with Class D amps. Could explain a lot. Other shows we've seen over the same time period (Adrian Belew, Carl Palmer, Dwezil Zappa, Return to Forever, Stanley Clarke and Tony Levin) did not exhibit this effect. They were all using traditional balanced mike cables with passive mixing board, separate amplification and passive PA speakers.
The son of a close friend runs a recording studio in Syracuse (The Square Studio - shameless plug here). He constantly complains that his clients (mostly younger hard rock and alternative acts) insist on this kind of sound. They all seem to think that more is better; overly full arrangements and nothing but sound. They claim it is necessary to get recognized by the larger labels and that it sounds better on portable devices. We do not agree with either of those contentions. Witness St. Vincent, Snarky Puppy, Nine Inch Nails and others. None of that stuff, neither when they were getting started nor now.
From our perspective, we just buy the music we like. If the recording is up-to-snuff, we sit down to the high-end rig and really get into it. If not, CDs get burned and played in the car or RV. Bad vinyl mostly just gets to look pretty in the collection. Since jazz acts seem to have a better track record on sound quality, that is where our purchase history skews. It is the compromise that usually works for us.
Know this wasn't the kind of information you were looking for, but hopefully you find it useful background. Good luck & happy listening!