High quality CDs

OP

Regarding “so many choices”…the Classical Market used to be dominated by 3 or 4 “Major” labels—Columbia, RCA, EMI, DG,Phillips and Mercury-and their dominance was gradually broken up by budget and independent labels.  The CD era really facilitated the growth (and now streaming) of these labels so now they now dominate the Classical Market.  Many of them place a much greater priority on SQ than pop labels, because the goal is to capture the sound of a live ensemble, not some end product created at a mixing console.

  Another trend is to use concert performances for recordings, as this reduces studio costs.  This presents more of a challenge to record accurately, but the performances tend to be more exciting.  It may be worth sacrificing a bit of sonic accuracy for extra performing juice.

@clearthinker  what was your cd player at the time? 

@retiredfarmer 

On the face of it, a pertinent question but remember I said the Chesky disc was far worse than other CDs.  So you can deduce the player paid other CDs satisfactorily.

To answer your question the player was a Wada 16, an expensive leading high-end CD player at the time.  CDs did play much better on it than on cheapo Japanese tin boxes.  The Wadia was my first CD player.  I have only had one other, an Audio Research CD9.  It is a good bit better than the Wadia.

Reference Recordings ...

https://referencerecordings.com/

try ...

https://referencerecordings.com/recording/bernstein-candide-suite/

Anything on LINN ...

https://www.linnrecords.com/

especially any of the Kuniko marimba recordings ...

https://www.linnrecords.com/artist-kuniko

@clearthinker  yes the Wadia 16 had 1702 DAC chips every player that I owned or listened to with 1702 had a hardness and almost brightness to the top end. I picked a Wadia six because it had k63 DAC chips the Wadia 15 I believe had those chips as well if I remember correctly. To bad you never owned a player with the Ulta analog DAC chips in it.  

Remember you cannot judge q whole label by one recording either. 

Regards