Audiophile LP's

Here's another vote for Sheffield Labs :-)

Another label sold as "audiophile" is Tacet, but i do have an issue with them...
- sound engineering is superb
- the pressings are quiet (i.e. track noise compared to others)
- very flat pressings

But my issue is - the grooves are cut too close together - you can hear the content of the upcoming groove (i.e. in the next revolution) in the background, because during cutting process, each cut groove is distorted by the cutting of the present groove it is next to. Loud rtacks are not as noticeable, but solo artist pressings are ver noticeable

I would like to think this is an oversight, but every Tacet album I have suffers this same issue. 

Deutsche Grammophon is one of my all time favourites for non-audiophile pressings

Cheers

Another vote for the Sheffield Direct to Discs(and no compression). The Thelma Houston/Pressure Cooker album, will REALLY test a system’s mettle, played at anything close to realistic levels. Doug Sax will probably always be my all time favorite Music Mixologist/engineering talent. What a shame, to have lost him! Acoustic Sounds bought his entire facility(The Mastering Lab), from his estate. Crystal Clear made some excellent Direct to Discs. If you want to test a system/room, for bottom end response, get The Fox Touch(Virgil Fox playing the Fratelli-Ruffatti Organ, in Garden Grove, Calif.). That album has some 16Hz fundamentals on it(the 32’ pipes). The early MFSLs were great too(especially Dark Side of The Moon). Their new ones(anything after they started making CDs), not so much(to me). Nautilus put out a few REALLY well mixed/mastered/pressed, 1/2 speed mastered discs, Fleetwood Mac’s, ’Rumours’, being my favorite of those releases. Then there’s their Heart/Dreamboat Annie, too. I even enjoy some of the old Telarcs(ie: Stravinsky’s Firebird). If you can locate an original pressing of Ry Cooder’s, Bop ’Til You Drop, it was the first major-label(Warner Bros.) vinyl, to ever be digitally mastered and is a lot of fun. I sold a lot of speakers, using that as a demo album. Glad I learned how to care for vinyls, early on. My old, "audiophile" pressings were certainly worth the time/effort. Hell- I’ve still got my original Columbia, Dave Brubeck/Take Five. I can’t imagine a better mix/pressing (audiophile or not), though there may be one out there. In my opinion, one of the things that made a lot of those vinyls so very good, was the use of tubes, in those old recording/mastering/cutting systems.

Refence Recordings by Keith Johnson are among the best LPs ever made, and the musicians are generally superior to those recorded by Sheffield.

Check out the Better Records web store.

I know the owner can be a bit of a "hard" salesman with a pitch that can get annoying.

However, I can personally state that Hot Stampers are no hype,  The owner of the site has been able to perfect a system that allows him to compare vintage vinyl copies to identify the best sounding ones.

However, be prepared to pay a premium for this service.

I think the OP’s question was directed to LPs marketed as "audiophile" rather than the not so simple task of finding a "best pressing" among various commercial releases.
To the OP’s question, many of the direct to disc records sound fabulous-- the music itself is a question of taste.
The MoFi’s (the original ones pressed on the JVC vinyl in japan) were fabulously made and many were offered at a time when the quality of US vinyl was shoddy. In retrospect, my experience is that some of them hold up sonically, while others sound "fiddled with" compared to other, regular commercial copies. The vinyl formulation was superb, though, and in my view, has never been bettered.
At the time, most of these were more expensive than the standard issue, but not extraordinarily so. I have shelves full of them that I rarely listen to, from the old Mark Levinson and Wilsons, to various direct to disc, including M&K, Sheffield, Crystal Clear and a host of others, including a lot of the old MoFi.
I can’t comment on Tom Port- discussions of his business model usually involve controversy over the price of otherwise common pressings. The cost is in the identification of a good sounding copy. I go through this process on my own to lesser or greater degrees depending on the record and how much I care about it. That can be time consuming and costly.
There are some very well known "best" (or great) pressings -- copies that were generally released (not as "audiophile") and at the time, probably regarded as nothing special to most people. With the Death of Vinyl, and the obsessive pursuit of older, analog copies, entire communities have been built (virtually) around seeking out and comparing various pressings, identifying them by country of origin, pressing plant, deadwax nomenclature, etc.
This is different than collecting Blue Notes or other high value jazz or classical records which today command a high price.
The biggest bugaboo with old records, apart from identifying preferred pressings, is typically condition.
To the OP’s question, were these worth it at the time? I’d say yes, having bought and enjoyed many of them. I would distinguish this from the current audiophile pressings (almost always remastered reissues rather than original releases). In some cases, these current (even if out of print) audiophile releases make sense given the cost or scarcity (and condition) of the original releases. And in some cases, the audiophile remaster actually does sound better than the original commercial release (depending on what you call the "original").
I think, from today’s vantage point, looking back, you have to take it on a record by record basis, rather than declaring that an original pressing or the audiophile remaster is better. And, even in that comparison, people’s views will differ, depending on personal preference, system strengths (or weaknesses), etc.