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Recommend your best sounding LP's

I am receiving a new TT today and am looking to add to my collection of great albums.  I have been sorting an extensive collection from my father (mostly 60's).  I am open to all kinds of music as long as the recording is amazing.  I know of the usual suspects (Pink Floyd, Dire Straights, Cowboy Junkies).  What I am looking for is recommendations on some more obscure music I may not be familiar with yet.  I am really enjoying Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra for example.  Wasn't really my thing until recently.  I guess that is another benefit of a high-quality system.  Please recommend an artist and specific album down to the pressing information if you can.  Thanks in advance!!!!
128x128mmporsche
whart's avatar
whart
1,930 posts
 
mm- no one source. Discogs is a decent starting place, but grading and pricing is all over the lot. For stuff like Warner green labels, many can be found in bins in used record stores all over the U.S. The Steve Hoffman forum is a good place to get a handle on some better known pressings of "classic rock"- just run a web search for "best vinyl pressing of X" (where X= band or artist or album title) and you'll probably wind up in one of the Hoffman threads. (Don't take anything on faith, but the better informed threads usually involve comparisons of different pressings, and rarely conclude that there is "one" best). I've gotten records from all over the world, and do rely on a few established dealers, but like many people buying used records, I also bid in on line auctions. You need to do your due diligence on pressings- some of the descriptions are not always accurate, and as I already mentioned, I tend to take grading with a grain of salt. (Visual grading tells you the record looks good, that's pretty much it-aside from play grading, which is also subjective, ask about warps). Part of the fun is the discovery, the research and the chase, rather than one stop shopping. 
czarivey
4,494 posts
 
play-grading can fail even on sealed records.
whart's avatar
whart
1,930 posts
 
Cz- not sure how you play grade a sealed record, but I usually don’t buy old sealed records b/c there is often no recourse, and it is truly an unknown. PS: if you mean that a sealed record can have problems, I agree. Perhaps I misunderstood your point. 
regards,

czarivey
4,494 posts
 
Correct, whart, 
I came upon sealed Bellafonte at Carnegie Hall german issue with loud pop on first track side 4 lasting near half of song.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
4,908 posts
 

mmporsche---Welcome to the wonderful world of LP's! They often provide a completely different musical experience than a CD, or any other digital format. As his postings here testify to, Bill Hart (whart) is one of Audiogon's most valuable sources of musical recommendations in regard to both music and the sound quality of it's recording, particularly as available on LP.

Having already gone through the journey you are now embarking on, allow me to suggest that you focus on the music first, with superior sound quality, when available, as a welcome bonus. The sound quality of direct-to-disc LP's (recordings made directly onto an LP "mother", bypassing an electronic recorder of any kind) are uniformly far superior sonically to that of LP's containing a recording made via any electronic recorder. However, the music found on D2D albums, while sounding startling "alive", is, generally speaking, of little musical interest or value. D2D LP's are a valuable tool for ascertaining the quality of hi-fi components, but generally contain of little of musical interest.

Of the LP's notable for containing great music and great sound, Cat Stevens "Tea For The Tillerman" ranks among the very best. A really, really great recoding of music a lot of people like (particularly girls, I have discovered ;-). For details of the album's various pressings, see Michael Fremer's coverage of the album in both Stereophile and his own website. In fact, Fremer's writings should be your number one source for all things LP related.

"Song Cycle" by Van Dyke Parks (Brian Wilson's lyricist collaborator in 1966-7) is a remarkable album of music and lyrics by a very eccentric and brilliant guy. "Donovan's Colors" from the album was a cut included an LP that JBL put out in the early 70's, specifically to use as a loudspeaker evaluation tool. The harpsichord contained in the song is a brutal test of loudspeaker capabilities.

"Me & Bobby McKee" on Gordon Lightfoot's If You Can Read My Mind album is a great recording, not only in sound quality, but in terms of the song's performance by Gordon. I was present when the song was played for Bill Johnson of ARC by Walter Davies in 1972, at Walter's new Livermore California hi-fi shop. Walter is now the man behind the LAST line of LP care products, but in 1972 had just opened Audio Arts. On the day I first visited the shop, Bill was installing a complete ARC system. Walter played the song, and Bill was impressed enough with the sound to say "That is a great recording, what is it?". Walter gave him the LP, and I got myself one. Still have it!


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