When I first started getting into classical music almost 50 years ago, there weren't so many recordings available as there are today, and one's chances of getting a turkey were next to nil (since everyone and his uncle weren't recording all the Beethoven symphonies, Strauss tone poems, Mozart operas, and the rest of it.) In fact, my first Ring cycle, starting in 1960 with Rheingold and finishing some 6-7 years later with Walkure, was the Solti, and not only did I "imprint" on it but it was the only set widely available, each component of the cycle being a major event when it was released. Now, of course, everyone and his uncle are putting out Ring cycles, and the appearance of yet another is just a big yawn.
So I was lucky. I grew up on Toscanini's Beethoven and Verdi, Rubinstein's Chopin, Walter's Mahler 1 and 4, Munch's Berlioz, Solti's Ring, Craft's Webern and Schoenberg, Steinberg's Brahms on Command Classics, Biggs's and Gould's Bach keyboard works, etc. Not a clunker among them. (One of the few oddities was an Ormandy Scheherazade where a big chunk was cut from the third movement. I still find the presence of that passage jarring when I hear an uncut version.)
