Recommend your best sounding LP's


I am receiving a new TT today and am looking to add to my collection of great albums.  I have been sorting an extensive collection from my father (mostly 60's).  I am open to all kinds of music as long as the recording is amazing.  I know of the usual suspects (Pink Floyd, Dire Straights, Cowboy Junkies).  What I am looking for is recommendations on some more obscure music I may not be familiar with yet.  I am really enjoying Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, Frank Sinatra for example.  Wasn't really my thing until recently.  I guess that is another benefit of a high-quality system.  Please recommend an artist and specific album down to the pressing information if you can.  Thanks in advance!!!!
128x128mmporsche

mmporsche---Welcome to the wonderful world of LP's! They often provide a completely different musical experience than a CD, or any other digital format. As his postings here testify to, Bill Hart (whart) is one of Audiogon's most valuable sources of musical recommendations in regard to both music and the sound quality of it's recording, particularly as available on LP.

Having already gone through the journey you are now embarking on, allow me to suggest that you focus on the music first, with superior sound quality, when available, as a welcome bonus. The sound quality of direct-to-disc LP's (recordings made directly onto an LP "mother", bypassing an electronic recorder of any kind) are uniformly far superior sonically to that of LP's containing a recording made via any electronic recorder. However, the music found on D2D albums, while sounding startling "alive", is, generally speaking, of little musical interest or value. D2D LP's are a valuable tool for ascertaining the quality of hi-fi components, but generally contain of little of musical interest.

Of the LP's notable for containing great music and great sound, Cat Stevens "Tea For The Tillerman" ranks among the very best. A really, really great recoding of music a lot of people like (particularly girls, I have discovered ;-). For details of the album's various pressings, see Michael Fremer's coverage of the album in both Stereophile and his own website. In fact, Fremer's writings should be your number one source for all things LP related.

"Song Cycle" by Van Dyke Parks (Brian Wilson's lyricist collaborator in 1966-7) is a remarkable album of music and lyrics by a very eccentric and brilliant guy. "Donovan's Colors" from the album was a cut included an LP that JBL put out in the early 70's, specifically to use as a loudspeaker evaluation tool. The harpsichord contained in the song is a brutal test of loudspeaker capabilities.

"Me & Bobby McKee" on Gordon Lightfoot's If You Can Read My Mind album is a great recording, not only in sound quality, but in terms of the song's performance by Gordon. I was present when the song was played for Bill Johnson of ARC by Walter Davies in 1972, at Walter's new Livermore California hi-fi shop. Walter is now the man behind the LAST line of LP care products, but in 1972 had just opened Audio Arts. On the day I first visited the shop, Bill was installing a complete ARC system. Walter played the song, and Bill was impressed enough with the sound to say "That is a great recording, what is it?". Walter gave him the LP, and I got myself one. Still have it!


Thank you all for the continued excellent advice on music. I just ordered up another 6 or so albums last night.

While I have 1000+ CDs I haven’t listened to 5 of them since I stood my system up a few months ago. My OPPO 105D just sits there waiting. I am really enjoying digging through my father’s albums and discovering little hidden gems; lots of good stuff. Some sound great and others not so much. Much of this is due to the fact they were used in a Denver radio station. I run each one through my KL Audio prior to playing and clean my needle each side but still get a lot of noise (pops, etc.). I am hopeful my much nicer new table will help to lessen some of this but unsure.


Try Steven Wilson, he's a bit like pink Floyd on steroids. Get his albums "the raven that refused to sing" and Hand.Cannot.Erase. The track Drive Home has one of the best guitar solos in all of rock. Hand Cannot Erase the whole album is stellar. Both are double albums. The track Regret #9 from Hand has another solo that is hard to beat. 

If if you end up liking Steven Wilson, then try Porcupine Tree, his band before he went solo.
By the way, my CD collection also sits there lonely and unplayed since we swung back into analog in a big way.
Steve Wilson = genius. Multi-instrumental, mixes, produces, remixes famous classic prog, cool sounds, constantly cranking out stuff, different collaborations, including that Israeli rock musician, his stuff with Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth. Guy can do it all. His remixes of Tull's Benefit and Aqualung were great, and dirt cheap on vinyl.