Well, lot's of Jazz albums from that era sound surprisingly good, but then again, a lot of care and expense went into their recording and archival (the 'album' was pretty much exclusive to jazz back then). Not so with a lot of "pop" music of the day and less so with regards to rock, which was considered a fad back then. If there are exceptions, I ain't heard it. Smokey's right, a compilation set is prolly as good as its gonna get if we're talking pop, rock or country. I have several CD reissues of late '50s jazz and they sound very good.