So one of the great things about Roon is that I’ve been rediscovering things in my “back catalog”; stuff I ripped 10-15 years ago and haven’t “seen” since… a lot of it is music I love in recordings that are honestly so-so, but in many cases were the best technology reasonably available at the time. Field recordings made by Alan Lomax, compilations like Music of the Medicine Shows, some of the Friends of Old Time Music, Robert Johnson. Remastering has been kind to some of these, less so to others. Maybe it’s that I’m older now, maybe it’s that some amount more of my listening is now on “mid-fi” (eg Sonos Play:3 in the kitchen) vs critical listening on my desktop rig, or headphone rig or primary rig. But one of the absolutely unexpected benefits of Roon is that I’m finding not only great recordings of music (both great recordings of so-so music and great recordings of great music) but also meh recordings of great music. And funnily I appreciate the latter just as much as — if not more than — the former. Wow. Don’t think software has ever done something like that for me. It’s not just the Tidal high bit rate (don’t get me wrong, I’m loving the hi-res experience too!) but the exact opposite that’s fabulous. Weirdly I’m also loving some of the old MP3s I collected in college of North African folk-rock, and discovering a whole “new again to me” genre, also field recordings on “bad” equipment, but astounding that it was captured.
Is anyone else out there finding so-so recordings of great music again (or anew) and loving it?