CD getting as good as LPs - recommendations

Hassel; I'm in agreement with your premise, and find myself in agreement with Pbb's well stated post too.

Two XRCDs that I really like are Jacintha's "Autumn Leaves" by FIM, and The Audioquest XRCD of Robert Lucas "Luke and the Locomotives", a blues-rock CD with wicked slide guitar. The Jacintha XRCD has some minor tape hiss but otherwise is excellent. Cheers. Craig

I guess I'll be the lone dissenter. I'm currently using Goldmund transport and DAC in about the $20K range, not counting platforms, power cords, and a short list of tweaks. Though the best redbook combo I've heard, they don't hold up to the best that vinyl can produce. I agree Newbee, it is about the music, and the medium that gets me closer to the illusion of the performance is vinyl. Does all vinyl out perform CD? Of course, not. I'm referring to the best that CD has to offer versus the best from vinyl. I certainly enjoy CD through my digital gear, but I find that I'm much more emotionally connected to the music when listening to great vinyl.

Perhaps it is the level of vinyl equipment that others and I use which has convinced us that vinyl still holds the upper hand. Maybe it is just a fondness for the ritual that surrounds vinyl playback or the personal involvement and effort that is required to extract the best from the equipment. Possibly it is all of the above. In any case, I believe that if you look around, you're likely to see that there more than a few of us who still prefer the best that vinyl has to offer. In the end, enjoy the music.

Hassel:

Never heard of XRCD (good luck finding Charles Trenet performing his composition "La Mer" in this format:-).

I find Red Book CD's to be (in general) inferior to LP's.

That said, I own 1500+ RB CD's and 2000+ LP's (I'm a sucker for the music, not the format).

We agree with Seandtaylor99 that the Decca Legend CDs are fantastic - and we have a very high resolution system (Audio Aero Capitole mk II, Lamm L2, Edge Signature monoblocks, Valhalla, Shunyata Anacondas, Acapella Campanile Highs). The CDs are all classical music, remastered at 24/96, and are recordings of some of the best performances of the last century. In general, I find them to be better than XRCDs (we have have about 20 XRCDs here, mostly jazz, and about 20 Decca Legends so far - but have just ordered the complete set) and they are MUCH cheaper ($12 at AMZN, $13 at iclassics.com). At iclassics you can see them all together (I have not found a way to search AMZN correctly to see an exhaustive list there):

http://www.iclassics.com/iclassics/catalog_line_detail.jsp?catalogLineId=6

Yes, remasters continue to shine. I accidentally bought TWO sets of La Boheme recently, and am surprised to find that the 1969 budget set with Pavarotti on Opera D'Oro is preferable to the 2000 set with Bocelli on Decca!
As well I'm a fan of the LSO's direct recordings, but was surprised to find that their most recent CD with Rostropovich is bettered by his 10yr old effort with the SAME orchestra! So surprises abound. A "live" recording on Pickwick of the 1990 performance of "Sacre" by Zander at Jordan Hall still makes my hair stand on end, as well Chesky's early transfer of Horenstein on Dvorak's New World. There are simply too many examples to note, but there IS a correlation with age and quality, although a fairly weak one. You gotta hunt and peck, as it's still mostly a function of the recording engineers, acoustics and mic placement...all occuring well before the ADCs, nevermind your transport and DAC choices.