Best Quality Recording On Vynil

There is no 'best VINYL recording' since every opinion is different, and people like different music. Dark Side of the Moon isn't even Pink Floyds best LP. I have a British pressing of Animals, which is a much better LP than DSOTM that sound great. Which version of DSOTM are you refering to, I have four of them and they all sound different.

There are lots of good rereleases of classic rock, pop, and classical, not to mention blues, and Jazz.

I think the Simply Vinyl versions of some of Elvis's catalog sound amazing, I only had one Elvis recording before I heard how good those were, but I certainly don't think they're the best. Beyond that, I have not listened to every LP ever recorded, so I don't know what the best one is, after all.

A similiar sounding piece to DSOM but better recording (I think anyway) is Alan Parson's 1st recording "Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Edgar Allan Poe" pressed by MFSL.

The U.S. pressing of Pink Floyd "Animals" sucked as I remember.. the British pressing is probably much better.

Nrchy, I have the British Animals as well and it is quite incredible! But highly manipulated studio recordings on old tape just aren't in the league of the best vinyl recordings. Most are musically worthless, but the Sheffeild Labs direct-to-disc recordings are, by a large margin, the highest fidelity records ever made, IMHO. Try the Harry James ones for sheer power and clarity. The 45rpm Crystal Clear direct-to-disk recordings are better musically, and next up for sound quality. I like the Charlie Byrd best, and then the Laurindo Alemeda. For a studio affair on tape, try The Dave Frishberg Songbook, volumes 1 and 2 on the Omni Sound label. If you can get past Frishbergs melange of novelty songs and strange phrasing, you will be amazed. DSOTM, which I have five different copies of (but not the vaunted Pro Use version, which I have auditioned at length) and love, is not even on the same planet sonically as any of these.

Yes. Agree with much of what is stated above. It really depends on what "quality" you value. It's a very subjective word.

Some would say that the 45rpm reissue of the "Firebird Suite" is one of the greatest symphonic recordings on vinyl. I think this is surely one of the contenders but one needs to be able to look past the notorious Mercury tape hiss.

I'd pretty much second Viridian's comments, but will add one or two further remarks. I tend to distinguish the musical performance from the audio quality -- there are some superbly recorded LP's that aren't very interesting from a performance standpoint. Very few "audiophile" recordings have great performance AND great sound.

I think one of the most realistic recordings I've heard is the Reference Recording LP of Berlioz's "Symphonie Fantastique", conducted by Verujian Kojian. The 4th and 5th movements are simply astounding when heard on a really good, full-range system.

As a body of work, the Sheffield recordings are probably the "gold standard" for D-to-D recordings, but I'd have to include the M&K recording titled "For Duke" among the top several, and some of the EastWind recordings ("The Three", "LA Four", etc.) are superb.

Last, one of my personal favorites is an LP released in the early 1980's by Wilson Audio called "Magnum Opus", which is a taped recording of the Flentrop organ in St. Mark's Cathedral in Seattle, WA. The cathedral is rather large and boxy, with a reverb decay time of 6-7 seconds, and this recording is as close to the actual sound of that organ as anything I've ever heard. If you ever find a copy of this LP, buy it -- even if you don't like organ music.

Among the larger labels, there is a group that consistently manages to produce good-to-excellent performances AND good-to-excellent sound quality. The obvious choices are the RCA "Living Stereo" releases of the mid-1950's to early 1960's, and the Mercury "Living Presence" LP's of that same era. I'd add to that list: Harmonia Mundi; Decca; London; BIS; Opus; Nimbus; Lyrica; Vanguard (mostly their folk releases); and some of the Supraphon and Hungaraton releases.

When it comes to jazz, I've been pleased with many of the LP's by Contemporary Records from the late 1950's and early 1960's that were engineered by Roy DuNann; many of the Blue Note recordings of that era by Rudy Van Gelder; ECM; some of the recordings on Verve, Atlantic, and Riverside; and most of the releases on the "Black Saint" and "Soul Note" labels (an Italian company, owned by Giovanni Bonandrini).