Why Recordings Sound Worse Now Than They Did in the 1950s and 1960s

It is a fact that many classical music recordings that were made in the late 1950s and early 1960s actually sound much more realistic and are of better quality than many of those made today. This is principally because they were recorded in true stereo with good quality microphones and relatively little in the signal chain. Some audio engineers continue to work this way, but not many. The art and science have largely been lost. In the popular music field, they never really adopted stereo anyway, except from some recordings made in the early 1950s, and so things have not changed much, except of course from the impact of digital technology. These issues are discussed.