Tips on Buying Quiet Quality sounding LP's

"i agree with bob. when buying used vinyl at stores in my area, i can listen to the record with head phones. then i can at least gauge whether there is surface noise."
I concur. I bring decent Shure Earbuds with me, which helps
a little over the ones in the store. Of course, no way to avoid the old rickety TT, and outdated Ratshack phono amp.
Tanglewood, is your moniker influenced by the famous Amphitheatre in the Berkshires.

I have found that some of the new 180 gram repressings are a jump ball. I have had some that are very good and some not. Case in point I am on my third 180 gram cat stevens tea for the tillerman album and they all sound poor even relative to some of my albums that i had in college 40 years ago. Definitely hit and miss but worth the effort.

Buy classical in multi-volume boxed sets. Many never got played even once.

Roughly half of our 3,000 LP's are these, nearly all bought off ebay. At least two thirds were never played before we received them.

Supply is often good, demand often thin, so prices can be low.

As always, it helps if your timing is good and you understand what you're looking at. People pay hundreds of dollars for Pierre Fournier's stunning performances of the Bach cello suites. I spotted them buried amongst an 11 volume, 120 LP Bach collection on pristine Archiv Production vinyl. Bought the whole collection, never played, for $.50 per LP.

Of course it helps to like music that lacks mass market appeal, and to have alot of shelf space!

I concur with Dougdeacon. USed classical multi-volume boxed sets are usually golden and very cost effective. I snatch them up whenever I find them for pennies a disc.

visual condition is a crapshoot, but historically thats the way vinyl is graded. if the cover is even slightly worn , the value to a collector plummets as well. these basics were around long before younger audiophiles got dooped into thinking the vinyl thing was nirvana. is it fun?...yeah..is it consistant?...never....Anyone with a significant record collection knows that the heartaches co-exist with the happiness...thats never going to change......the day you drive it off the lot, or the day the needle hits the groove there is no 'mint'. keeping it near mint for decades is an art in of itself.