[Folsom]

A friend of mine has a few but I am not going to be interested unless they are good recordings.

[strider]

I've got the box set as well as the Charlie Parker compilation. The recordings are a mixed bag. The material is excellent, but if there's not much consistency in the quality of the recordings.

[weirdo]

that's because some of this century's finest musicians were aforded some to the worst conditions for recording. Ya gotta just listen and love, because it rarely gets sonically good from the 50's. I have the ornete coleman and ella CD's. There are better comps out there. Any one CD selction of a patricular artist will be a subjective adventure.  Give them a spin..

[woodsyi]

You listen to historical recordings for their historical value and hope that you can get a sense of the artistry and vocal magic from what we have.  Some are better in LP or 78s but that's about it.  I love listening to Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music but it's not for sound quality. 

[Jon L]

Ken Burns CD's have below average sound quality from the ones I do have.  I disagree that this is the way it has to be because it looks like they did not even attempt remastering these tracks.  Had they done some decent remastering, they would sound much, MUCH better, as evidenced by numerous other albums of similar era that *have* been remastered. 

[ooheadsoo]

In my limited experience with a disc or two, there appears to have been no effort to touch up the recordings at all.  If the condition of the master was no good, they didn't try to find a better one.

[Tim S]

I agree with woodsyi. These disks are more for the historical value of having all the tracks from the range of artists. It is more archival than anything else. The sound quality is fine for some tracks though I recall some of the older recordings do show their age. They are still kind of fun to have.