50 of the best hi-fi albums for audiophiles

Props to What Hi-Fi for compiling the list and linking it to a stream. I haven’t made it through yet, but while "Automatic for the People" is a very good lp, the sonics are not to audiophile standards on my 1st press lp.

Not an album, but a stream: this summer BBC Radio 3 has experimented with full red book standard 16/44 streams of live classical broadcasts (compressed in lossless FLAC). What was remarkable was that the average recorded level was much lower than I have heard elsewhere. So there was plenty of headroom for a very high dynamic range. It was pretty spectacular. The music was often great too.

"We didn't set ourselves the task of picking the absolute, definitive best 50 albums for audiophiles.

"We did, however, manage to compile the below list of 50 records (and a little further listening for each) we feel span genres, styles of production and sonic character rather well. If nothing else, they'll give your hi-fi a workout and, hopefully, broaden your musical horizons at least a little."

> From the introduction to the article

gsm18493,

If you are associated with the article, I don’t recall you mentioning "definitive" in your original title/post. I recall this.. "50 of the best hi-fi albums for audiophiles". When one mentions audiophiles, I can only assume, they mean, the best sounding.....You now want to go back and renew your original meaning.

My "Automatic for the People" does not give my system a "work-out". It does give my ears a sense of...'I don't want to subject myself to this anymore".

Agreed that AFTP would not be on my list.  Reckoning is a much better choice in the REM realm, at least for me.