Vinyl ratings for audiophiles

I agree with some of the above mint minus on eBay and Amazon is a really good bet. Older records in good condition sound great

Musicdirect and elusivedisc has great info and remark on new vinyl. I always find it usefull.

The new MoFi release of Jerry Garcia and David Grisman is one of the best sounding recordings I've bought recently and may be one of the best I have period.

A nice tool to have in your quest for the holy grails of vinyl releases, and their versions can be found at Discogs

Find the first pressing (version 1) from the many that are possibly listed (there are 306 versions for Led Zeppelin "Untitled" a.k.a IV).

Note the data in the dead wax - on all sides - that's either scratched or stamped or both (also refered to as the Matrix / Runout) as well as other identifiers: Label code; catalog number etc. The more info the better to accuratly identify what you want and are buying.

Find it. Play it!

Agree with other folks that Reissues are not the best representation of music that was recorded aeons ago. If you can find an orig (it takes time and effort) this IMO is the sweetest reward.

Love discogs. They're pretty accurate overall, and it's kinda cool reading all of that stuff in the dead wax I could care less about years ago. It certainly is a treat to find that nice clean original (especially a promo copy! nice!) and then playing it...there's just no way a reissue can touch it. The master tape was fresh at that time and many other contributing factors which make it so crucial to get an original. But I digress, some originals can be pretty bad, and a reissue done the right way can be very good indeed.