Tom, a belated Happy Birthday!

As to recording quality, there are certainly those which are "harsh" because of the original performance or the mixing and mastering applied to it, but there's no such thing as "digital harshness". Digital sampling can only reproduce what it's given; it can't add harshness or any other quality.

If you're looking for more consistent(although certainly not uniform)good quality, many of the classical recordings suggested here might be of interest.

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Enjoy the music, not the equipment.