10 sonically best rock recordings ?

Days of the New's debut album. Although their 2 nd is quite up there, still does not come close to the first one.
Evertime I listen to the album, it just stuns me! It is that good. Their latest although HDCD falls short even further.I second the vote on the Rage against the machine's 'Battle of Los Angeles'.

Installment number 3 of my list of top ten. These are vinyl LP listings, with the country of origin indicated.
1. Suede, Sci-Fi Lullabies (NUDE 488851 2). British pressing. Ed buller of 140 dB knew how to record vintage guitars and tube amplifiers.
2. Lou Reed, Transformer (RCA AYL 1-3806). I was shocked to hear how good this sounds after all of these years. Simple, but effective. The vocal build-up at the end of "Satellite of Love" is breathtaking.
3. Smashing Pumpkins, Siemese Dream (Virgin Germany D 115586). Beautifully mutated guitar sounds (with vintage Mu-Tron electronics), dreamy backgrounds, a lower end that sounds like no other.
4. Sean Lennon, Into The Sun. (Grand Royal Records 7243 8459 40 22). My wife asked if I was listening to Gilbert O' Sullivan when I had this on last. Sears Sound (NYC) was always a fun place to record, but this shows that this studio is capable of high end fidelity. Highlight: "Spaceship"
5. Beck, Midnight Vultures (Geffen 4905272). Techno generation's Edgard Winter. Lightning quick pans of "Milk & Honey" is a nice soundstage test. Subwoofers beware.
6. John Lennon/Yoko One, Double Fantasy (Geffen 99131 German pressing). They finally found out how to record Lennon in the end.
7. Aerosmith, Toys In the Attic (CBS Holland 80773). The "Simply vinyl" re-release is also excellent.
8. Led Zeppelin, Houses of the Holy (Classic Records). Audiophiles owe a lot to Classic Records for re-mastering the Zeppelin catalogue. They are all excellent and worth buying: the only problems I have heard at times were problems with the original master tapes (esp. evident on II and III).
9. Neil Young, Neil Young (Reprise 44059 German Pressing). I am continually impressed by old Reprises, and I think that this is the best achievement from the early Neil Young: recorded in 1973.
10. The best for last. BEST ROCK RECORDING AWARD. XTC, Oranges and Lemons (Virgin V2581 West German Pressing). My reference rock recording, although I am not really an XTC fan. Mobile Fidelity put out their own remaster which is even better, but this West German pressing is superb. Other XTC recordings--Big Express (806613620), Mummer (2053383098) and English Settlement (British Pressing only, V2223)--are well worth seeking out, esp. the German or British pressings. Skylarking (207905-630) has a beautiful soundstage, but the sonics are compromised (dynamically, and harmonically) by the decision to inlude over 20 minutes of music on each side. The 2 LP Oranges and Lemons does not have this problem. Japanese pressings of the entire XTC catalogue have been recently released on CD, and I have heard that they are superb.

Several people mentioned Dire Straits (pretty much the entire catalog), but no one specified the original cd releases or the new remasters.

Has anyone heard the new remasters? Is there a significant improvement (worth replacing all my original versions)?

Related question: why has the entirety of the "Twisting By The Pool" ep never made it to cd?

There are many, many listed here with which I totally agree. Glad to hear someone else thinks that the Hendrix and Zep remasters are overly bright. What a waste of money is the Zep 4-CD boxed set.

One that hasn't been mentioned that is beautifully mixed both on LP and CD is Paul Simon's NEGOTIATIONS AND LOVE SONGS, 1971-1986. The songs "Late in the Evening", "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes" and "You Can Call Me Al" are particularly well produced. The song "Graceland" appears only on the LP set, however.

Hey...this is fun!

Looking back at the original question, I didn't see whether vinyl or cd was specific in the recommendations, but here's my 2 cents. Sometimes I find I get really excited when I hear a pressing or version of a classic recording I have always loved that shines new light and presents it in a way I've never heard before. I'm not about to recommend a great sonic recording if I don't enjoy the music, and I may tend to want to recommend a recording because I love the music so much, so keep that in mind.

I LOVE the Mobile Fidelity UHQR's. They represent the highest quality of playback available. Never heard the Pink Floyd "Dark Side of the Moon", but just listening to the regular MFSL recording would have me rate that near the top. I do have Supertramps "Crime of the Century" in UHQR and that is incredible. It tests the system its being played on. Other faves:

Dire Straits - 1st album - Japanese Pressing vinyl
Waiting for Columbus - MFSL (best concert album ever?) vinyl
Dire Straits - Brothers in Arms XRCD (this was recorded in digital and shows incredible depth here.
Heart - Dreamboat Annie - Nautilus vinyl
Fleetwood Mac - (both the "white album" with 'Rhiannon' and "Rumors") - Japanese pressing vinyl
Michael Jackson - Thriller SACD (this album may have been recorded without any real instuments other than voices, so eveything on here has the 'digital' sound, but that was what they were trying to do, and it sounds impressive)
Beatles - Abbey Road - Japanese pressing vinyl Pro-Use series. The overall sound doesn't stand up to the rest of these recordings but I've never heard it sound better!

I could list dozens more, but it was fun boming up with these!