2. music
  3. 187925-178988

Your Not-So-Obvious Best Fidelity LPs

I’ve spent over three years building up to the system I have now.  I’m really happy with it and my wife and I love sitting in our listening room spinning various vinyl most evenings.  Rather than researching and testing gear, I want to spend this year adding great recordings to our collection.

So what are the albums you have that every time you play it you're continually amazed at its fidelity?  You might have spent $80 on it or just $1 or maybe it was a hand-me-down decades ago.  Any genre really.

And if we can please avoid the most obvious choices (which are truly wonderful) such as Pink Floyd, The Eagles, Diana Krall, etc.  I’m looking for albums, (vinyl only please) that probably fly under the radar for most folks.

I'll start….

James Taylor - Dad Loves His Work - this was just given to me by a friend a couple of weeks ago as he had an extra copy.  I have plenty of JT albums but I didn’t have this one yet.  As soon as I put it on I could tell it was special.

Edie Brickell - Shooting Rubberbands at the Stars - My wife requested this one so I found a NM copy on Discogs for a reasonable price.  This kind of blew my socks off.  Sounds really wonderful and present and the music still holds up.

Counting Crows - August and Everything After - I surprised my wife with this one as it’s one of her favorite albums.  They really nailed the recording and pressing on this one.  It’s quite impressive. 

Ben Folds - What Matters Most - He’s one of our favorite songwriters but trying to find a copy of anything of his or Ben Folds Five for under $80 is nearly impossible.  This album was released just last year and they obviously paid special attention to the recording quality.  Sounds just phenomenal. 

Steely Dan - Northeast Corridor - Obviously everyone knows how amazing their studio recordings are but this album might be unknown to some as it came out just a few years ago.  I bought it on a whim knowing nothing about it.  It’s amazing.  As if they would release an album with less than stellar fidelity.  If you’re a Dan fan, this album is a no-brainer.

REM - Automatic for the People - Completely hypnotic.  Stunning recording.

OK, that’s enough from me.  

paulietunes
simonmoon's avatar
simonmoon
471 posts
 

I have often sung the praises of a series of recordings made by Nonesuch back in the 70's. Some are called "Spectrum New American Music". 

These recordings are quite amazing with regards to soundstage, imaging and the preproduction of other spatial cues. 

If you want to hear what a realistic, natural sounding soundstage sounds like, these recordings will do that. I can easily imagine getting up from my listening seat, and walking into the soundstage among the musicians. 

I listen to plenty great sounding rock recordings, but recordings like these are qualitatively on a different level.

And the thing is, these were a budget label when they were released. Not in the least bit considered "audiophile".

Musically, YMMV, since these tend to be pretty 'thorny' and atonal sounding (I love it!).  

They all tend to  have this visual format:

 

drmuso's avatar
drmuso
76 posts
 

@simonmoon

Thanks for sharing about those Nonesuch LPs. Even though I’ve been a classical LP collector since the ’70s, I wasn’t aware of that series, although I’m not a fan of atonal or serial compositions. Are any of them more tonal?

paulietunes OP
61 posts
 

Thank you @simonmoon !  I'm going to order a couple of these.

larsman's avatar
larsman
1,753 posts
 

One of the best sounding records I've ever heard is ABC's 'Lexicon of Love' and its amazing production by Trevor Horn; for me, it's right up there with 'Aja' if not even better; I'd sure like to see a UHQR double-45 of this one.... 

larryi
3,732 posts
 

At the last Capital Audiofest, I spent a lot of time hanging out with and helping Phillip O'Hanlon, who was exhibiting Graham speakers.  He is known for his vast and eclectic collection of LPs.  I brought for him to hear a record from my collection that he immediately went on line to purchase from Discogs.  It is David Peabody's "Americana" collection of folk music (Peabody is an Englishman who is a big fan of American folk music).  This record is quite cheap on Discogs, but, it is incredibly well recorded  I use the track "Sewing Machine Blues" as one of my standard demonstration tracks.

More to discover