For great recordings, why not follow the top mix engineers? Famous Blue Raincoat, that's George Massenburg and Frank Wolf. George also does all LInda Ronstadt/Nelson Riddle stuff. He did Joshua Judges Ruth (Lyle Lovett) and this new gal I just love, Dawn Langstroth. Check out her site, you can see him recording it IN the room with her live. Frank Wolf is still working all the time, look him up on Allmusic. Jim Anderson who is at NYU now did a lot of the Patricia Barber stuff. Diana Krall, that's Al Schmitt. He is one of the very best. Elliot Schiener, he did Fagen's Night Fly and a whole bunch of top level stuff. The Cowboy Junkie Record was done with a SoundField mic, same mic David Cheske uses on a lot of his recordings. Its a single mic with even lower phase error than a stereo pair. AMAZING imaging on so many of those Cheske records. Chuck AInlay, he does Mark Knopfler, some of the best guitar tone on record. Bill Schnee, another amazing talent. Doug Sax, he mastered Dark Side. He is the guy with Bill behind the Sheffield Labs stuff. I think you guys would have your best luck by following your favorite engineers.
I'm new to Audiogon for I am in the high end pro business. All those engineers are the folks I know, work for, talk to or sell gear to. The good ones are always doing good work. They seldom get stuck with over compressed mastering.
