Any advice on buying quality vinyl

listening to #235 MoFi of Hiatt - Bring the Family last eve...worth the premium I paid on discogs for an unopened copy...time is money and sometimes money is time travel....yowsa...heard stuff I didnt know was there....big A smile...

of course, not all MoFi hit that mark

I do heavily rely on about ten people on this board - posters on this thread and bdp24 of course...and a few others, and Discogs...and I am a bin scrounger...have some $1 David Lindley and JJ Cale that must be blackhole swallowed a white hot supernova stampers...

God, those are fun to find..

and YES get a decent record cleaning machine and stylus cleaner !!!!!

have fun

enjoy the music, and NEW music...

"The 180 grams or 200 gram records are also a maybe as to the sound quality and are they worth the extra money. All this is probably not what you wanted to hear."

I always thought my limp noodle, Bowie RCA Dynaflex albums sound great!

As mentioned by others, sound quality can be all over the place, even with period presses. I believe it may only guarantee getting closer  to the source.

"Greatest Hits" albums also are disappointing.

If you want to get involved, we have ongoing/active music threads that should be of interest to you.

Older analog recorded records are more consistent in sound quality and the original presses or close to 1st press are usually pretty good.  For example I have Black Sabbath Master of Reality on Green Label Warner Brothers 1st press and a palm tree later pressing and I like the palm tree press better but thy are both all analog, no digital in the chain.

Sometimes it is not really better/worse but different. As an example,  original US 360 sound and Japanese first release Bitches Brew by Miles. I like them both and listen to them both. Japanese vinyl is of higher quality, the records sound quieter and more balanced than the US pressing. But Miles's trumpet sounds a little closer to real on the US one. They are both original pressings in my mind. I tried a few re-issues including mo-fi and they all sounded worse. Didn't try Mosaic box release, though. Wish You Were Here sounds better on first release Japanese vinyl than on German, didn't try original UK, original US was worse than German.