Altec wrote, [Interestingly (but not surprising to me), the 1958 vintage recordings on vinyl were generally acknowledged as sounding more like real musicians playing in front of the listener than the 2008 digital recordings.] You are so right.

I'll even take that to late 50's recordings available on CD. I have people try to excuse poor sounding 70's classic rock as old recording techniques and then I play them some beautiful 50's recordings to show them that the potential was always there. Sometimes it depends on the Masters still available / used but they definitely knew how to record the material.