Mixed Results from My Hifi

Please describe your equipment. I could be the combination of SE or SET and single drivers or the type of tubes your running. Push Pull seems to work excellently with Rock and Roll and SE or SET are my favorites with Jazz. Single drivers with SE and SET and multiple drivers with Push Pull and Rock and Roll.

Why are so many of you answering without actually clicking on his System page? Look at the system. Look at the room. The issue he's having is most certainly not with the production quality of the CD's. It is stemming from the system, and its interplay with the room.

Your combination of the Rotel CDP with the Krell amp and the B&W speakers will sound exactly as you described in many rooms, and by the small peek we're getting at yours, I suspect that your setting it is only exacerbating your problems. I am no expert on room acoustics. Others can chime in. I think you ought to start with some room treatments. Maybe a rug on the floor. Absolutely throw a soft cover over that plexiglass sheet that's on your audio rack, at least when you're listening to music. I would also consider a change in speakers. In my opinion, having heard the 7 and 9NT's several times, they do not produce a rounded, full-range sound necessary to convey pop/rock music to your satisfaction. Another option is to get a more full sounding CD player. Can you bump up your budget a little? In my opinion, you are pushing the limits of potential harshness with every component in your system,
including the cables, and most definitely including the room.

FWIW, we have very large horn speakers and a 200W SS amp/tube preamp, and I can play every single CD in our 1000+ collection, and NOT ONE sounds harsh, congested, or remotely unlistenable. Having spent thousands of hours in recording studios, I will agree that there is a vast range in production quality. However, Coldplay & Sheryl Crow could hardly be considered as crowded or congested arrangements in the first place. And they're production caliber is top notch. More often, if something is going to hiss at you, it would be as heavily guitar track-laden as Husker Du or Jane's Addiction. Definitely not the case with those artists you mentioned.

Your room, your components. Not the CDs.

It's not equipment or room that's the primary problem, IMO, it's the recording. Your classical and jazz cd's that sound great are probably recorded with 15 dB or more of headroom while the pop/rock stuff is probably recorded with only 3 dB of headroom.

In the original post 3 specific albums were mentioned and the sound was described as compressed and digital. I own 2 of the 3 albums and no amount of switching equipment or room acoustics will make them sound good. The recordings are not high quality (by audiophile standards). The problem with over compressed CDs cannot be corrected by EQ or even signal expanders. There are things that could be done to his system that might help a little, but only a little. If his happy with other recordings, then why change anything for the few bad ones?

If his happy with other recordings, then why change anything for the few bad ones?

From his initial post: "But mass produced pop and rock are almost unlistenable." I took this to indicate that the three recordings he listed were but a few examples of a problem affecting a wide range of music. Maybe I've interpreted this incorrectly. I've heard all three of these CD's, and have never found them unlistenable from a sonics perspective. The components in his system, however, are highly likely to produce exactly the compressed, digital sound he describes, and only made worse by that room.