Any advice on buying quality vinyl

@voiceofvinyl,

I certainly don't have all the facts, but apparently the industry practice was either to send lacquers to foreign markets (used on location to press the discs) or to send second generation copies of the master tape and have the mastering done over there (usually under some licensing agreement). Even in those days it seems that record companies were reluctant to ship around their original master tapes. This might explain why original pressings made in the home country of the record company usually sound best. And also why in the above comparison of the Albeniz the US pressed LSC sounds slightly better than the UK pressed SB. 

But to complicate matters the agreement between RCA and Decca also involved recording. Many of RCA's recordings made in Europe (mostly with London orchestras or the VPO in Vienna) were made by Decca recording engineers like Kenneth Wilkinson. Obviously Decca did the mastering and pressing of the UK issues of these recordings, but did they also use the master tapes (which they made themselves)? I have no idea.

So I did another experiment: Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique by the VPO conducted by Pierre Monteux and recorded by Decca. In this case the UK pressed SB-2090 (1M,2L lacquers) sounds better than the US pressed LSC-2362 (2S,4S lacquers). This outcome suggests that Decca had access to the original tapes, but of course as legal owners so did RCA.

I admit to speculation here, but IF both companies used the original tapes for making these records, the Decca mastering engineers had the edge over their US collegues. But perhaps this is totally wrong. Perhaps a 1S/1S copy of the LSC sounds best of all, who knows?

So there's really only one way to find out: listen for yourself! That's just the advise you were waiting for, right? ;-).

Thanks for all the great replies.  Lots to consider.  Question for @inna, I have an Okki Nokki, where do you get your Audio Intelligent fluids, pre-cleaner plus three step solutions?  
Maybe this is a question for a new thread, but do you prefer older earlier pressings with the pops and clicks or the newer audiophile releases.  Case in point, as with my early discussion of Elton John recordings, today I was confronted with the choice of an Elektra version of Queen's A Night At The Opera or a new audiophile recording.  I chose the older recording and have been happy save for a few clicks and pops.  

Analog record playing is not an audio "level" as much as it is an audio "experience."  You know....the record case, sleeve, groove cleaner, turntable, tonearm, platter...etc. It is an outdated system that someone thought was retro cool and decided to confuse a lot of people with "retro-cool" hype.  It is still the same limited, flawed analog system it always was. 

But what it does provide is a really cool looking playback device - the turntable.  I get that....appearance is cool and part of the experience.  Audio hacks with time to kill have convinced their clueless buddies that this is the platform of the future.  Yes...it certainly sounds different from digital audio...but not better.  Sony and Phillips replaced the LP with a disc with far superior sonic capability.  Don't even try to argue that.  Scientists and audio engineers way smarter than you and I have trumped that notion.

Dynaquestst4 you are obviously a troll! I never post in these sites because of the ridiculous things people say! I had to this time. The same old response from someone who obviously has no clue about the sound of analog and how much better it is than digital. I went right into digital in the beginning of cd’s. I believed the same  quack statement that they’re so much better than analog. I listened to digital for twenty years until I made a comparison on the crappy Technics turntable, with an Audio Technica cartridge I had kept. Boy were my ears, yes ears were opened. All those years, there was something bothering me about the sound. It never quite sounded like I remembered albums sounding. I couldn’t figure out why my ears would hurt after a listening session until I made the comparison. I’m sorry but their is more information in the grooves of a record than any digital can accomplish. Especially if you clean, yes clean, your vinyl with an ultrasonic cleaner. Pops and clicks are almost nonexistent. More information is retrieved from the grooves. The better equipment you buy, especially the cartridge, has shown more and more revealing sounds that have always been on the tape, but earlier turntables and cartridges could not reproduce them. Even digital recordings, yes digital, sound better on vinyl then in its digital form ie: streaming, cd’s etc. Probably because it has been put into an analog waveform. Every person that has heard my system has switched to vinyl. Young and old friends. I wish people could just hear what really good analog sounds like. Digital cuts out a lot of the music information because of its waveform. It’s not nostalgia or the cool factor of the equipment. IT’S THE SOUND!!! If you like digital great. I like it for things that are not on vinyl. I just wish people would get over this debate. Digital does not sound better than analog. It is convenient. That is all. I’ve heard top notch digital and I still get listening fatigue. Digital has come a long way, but it has not surpassed analog. Sony knew in the beginning that digital did not sound better, but they wanted to give people convenience. If you did not live at that time, then you do not know what things sounded like. I lived through it. I drank the Kool-Aid in the beginning along with everybody else, except Michael Fremer. I wish I would have listened to him. It would have saved me a lot of money!

Dynaquest, I recorded all my vinyl to R2R tape; consequently, I no longer do all the cool stuff that you mentioned, I only enjoy a higher quality audio.

When CD's came out, everyone except audiophiles in HEA, thought the same as you; including me.

While it costs a few extra Pesos, Yen, Drachma, or whatever currency you have handy, Analog, meaning vinyl and high end rig will handily exceed CD. Scrape up some funds and join the party.