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Audio companies or boutique labels for good SQ LPs?

I only know and have bought a few LPs that were better recordings. The best was Cardas Audio but of questionable content. Except for their useful test LP. I bought a some Wilson Audio but was not impressed. MA Records are good but maybe only one or two. They are mostly CD. Surely Reference Records but also no too impressed.
Then there are First Impression Music (FIM) and Chesky which unfortunately seem to be now only digital. And, also sadly, Sheffield Labs seems to be limited to CD for new. And Blue Coast which is only digital.
Are there others that are producing or have produced vinyl of quality?
mglik
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,018 posts
 
Audioquest, Vandersteen, and Water Lily (get the album A Meeting By The River, guitar by Ry Cooder). You mention Sheffield: have you ever heard a direct-to-disc LP? Find one, any one!

Back in the 1970’s FMI (Fulton Musical Industries) produced some great-sounding LP’s on owner Robert Fulton’s ARK label. Fulton was not only a great loudspeaker designer, but a recording engineer as well.

The ARK LP’s sound fantastic (incredible inner detail and transparency, and the sound of the very large rooms in which the recordings were made very evident), but the music may not be of interest to many audiophiles: the recordings are of local (to Fulton) Minnesota church choirs and pipe organists. They are also very hard to find. My copies are not for sale. ;-)
millercarbon's avatar
millercarbon
12,531 posts
 
AudioQuest has some really good blues records, Doug MacLeod, Terry Evans, Sam McLain, all of them being made with AudioQuest wire. Sheffield, if you can find Michael Ruff Speaking in Melodies, just get it. Reference Recordings is another good label.

But really, if you want seriously good sound quality uber alles, https://better-records.com/collections is the place.
mglik OP
913 posts
 
Good to know about Audioquest. They don’t have LPs on their website. I have asked for a title list.
Will also ask Richard V.
bdp24's avatar
bdp24
10,018 posts
 
@mglik: Just be aware---I don't think Better Recrods can provide you with a White Hot Stamper LP of anything on Audioquest, Vandersteen, or Water Lily.

The A Meeting By The River not only features excellent recorded sound quality (the label's owner/recording engineer Kav Alexander is very talented, and has extremely high standards. He had his recorder's electronics replaced with circuits designed and built by the recently-departed Tim de Paravicini of EAR-Yoshino. TdP did the same in Pink Floyd's studio in London.), but also features the playing of Ry Cooder, some people's favorite living guitarist.
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