16mm stock is fantastic, if you get an original 16mm print it is a gorgeous thing to behold and much better than Super8.
However a lot of 16mm prints are cheap reductions done from a battered old print illegally on the side in a lab. Like those DVDs made from people who videotape a movie in a cinema. It isn't the DVD medium that is the problem, it is the source. Same with 16mm, if you can find an original it is a beautiful thing, but the reduction dupes are often awful.