Golden age of vinyl recordings?

There is no relationship between analogue and solid state. In fact many vinyl recordings were done with digital recorders and then transfered to vinyl discs.

I would estimate that the "golden age" of vinyl (analogue) was in the late '60s and early '70s.

Mid/Late 50's thru late 60's. All downhill after that, especially in the major domestic labels, and much of the imports, especially in quality control.

In classical music, the so-called "Golden Age" was probably the mid-to-late 50s and early 60s, when companies were just starting in stereo, recorded in analog and didn't multi-mike or process the sound that much; as a result, recordings from that time had a more natural and realistic sound than later, when multi-miking, severe compression and digital recording became the rage. Recordings from Mercury, RCA, London/Decca and others from that period are often highly prized by audiophiles; hence the reissues that have come out generally are of recordings made in that era. There are some exceptions, of course, such as the Lyrita and Vox releases from the 70s, and Decca and EMI in my view maintained a high quality standard beyond the early 60s, but RCA (with its Dynagroove recordings) and Columbia/CBS and DG (excessive multi-miking and brightness) went downhill IMHO after that period in quality vinyl releases.

I don't know if there was a golden age for rock in terms of recordings--I tend there to think more of artists than recordings, but I'm sure others will give their thoughts on this and on jazz recordings.

Rcprince has hit it spot on. But don't ignore today's high quality recordings and reissues coming out on vinyl. For blues, the new recordings from Analogue Productions are superb and the rissues of late 50's and early 60's recordings from companies like Speakers Corner are outstanding.

In the classical genre, some additional examples of the excellent quality exceptions mentioned by Rcprince during the 70's and 80's (beyond Lyrita and Vox) include: Harmonia Mundi, Astree, BIS, Alturus, Klimo and Hyperion. All of these labels were making incredibly good recordings.
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The present period properly referred to as the "high nostalgic" period. This period is noted by people scrounging for every piece of old vinyl extant or else paying $50.00 a piece for records that are often enough poorly pressed. Good vinyl may be great, but it is also hard to find.

Thanks. Now to pursue some of these Holy Grails.

50's and early 60's. After 68 the multi tracks, 16 tracks and high compression started. All killed realism and color and tone. Producer's became as important as the artists, so you started hearing a "sound" Early 50's mono killed any mono Beatles or any British recordings, that how far ahead we were in making high sound quality recordings and the masters who made them sound as real as possible.  That was the golden era and never will be bettered. 

Yeah. Never I don't know, but the way it has been going since those times probably not in the foreseeable future. Besides, tube equipment and tape decks are most likely to be extinct soon enough. Attitude is not as it used to be, things must radically change for real accomplishments. 

Tube equipment certainly isn’t going to be extinct any time soon...sales of tube guitar amps far outnumber tube home audio stuff...maybe 100 to 1 (possibly much more), and tape decks are having a revival including cassettes, although those might be a fad. Updated and newly designed reel to reel decks are basically state of the art for playback these days. Regarding post ’68 vinyl, I have a lot of amazing stuff from the 60s to current production that sounds astonishingly good, and to think otherwise is weirdly narrow and ignores the astonishing revival of great vinyl, thousands of great recordings, and the brilliant engineers and mastering pros who make it happen.

For me, the golden age has a lot to do with the music as well as the technology and is in the post-psych era in the UK, say ’68-71 or a little later. Studios were still somewhat primitive, bands had to be capable of playing the songs ’live in the studio’ rather than depending on dubbing in better parts. (Yes, they could overdub early on, but it wasn’t as much of a crutch). I think by 1970 or so, US studios had 16-24 tracks. That alone wasn’t bad, but it did shift the focus to the engineer/producer as an auteur and in the process, a lot of the product were studio confabulations-- some sound great, but have less to do with the sound of the room and the energy that could be generated by musicians playing together at the same time.
Much also depends on the production choices.
Whether or not you like early Neil Young, for example, Harvest (particularly the early Lee Hulko-mastered copies if you can find an unmolested one), sound fabulous-- very much a ’live in the studio’ recording, though tracks were recorded in different places at different times. It has a very organic quality.
PS: I also like the music in this time window- very creative, went in a million directions, London and environs were an incubator at the time and a lot of the templates for a lot of different genres of popular music were formed in this period that I appreciate-- very heavy rock, psych folk, early prog rock, precursor bands to what eventually was labelled 'metal' (though no cookie monster vocals or shredding). I think the scene then shifted to the LA singer-songerwriter thing by the early '70s. A whole different kettle of fish. And there were some really over the top studios there that got refurbished for the new rock-pop era. 

68-71 is a very short time period, what was happening in London then ? This is interesting.
It is always "who" but that is always connected to when and where.
"Primitive studios" are good, I want that minimally processed "live in the studio" sound. 

@inna- Chris Blackwell’s Island Records, an independent label at that time, was eating every other label’s lunch- he had signed Stevie Winwood and Traffic, went on with Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, the band Free, King Crimson, Nick Drake, John Martyn and a long list of other notable performers. Other imprints were formed to compete for the ’youth market’-- Deram (Decca), Vertigo Swirl (Philips), Charisma and Harvest (EMI) among others. They signed, recorded and released bands like Pink Floyd, a host of progressive bands that grew out of the Canterbury Scene, Sabbath and the later records of Roy Harper. Atlantic, which really didn’t have much of a presence there, grew from its signing of Zep. That label also had YES and a number of other prog, rock and other bands.
There were lot’s of obscurities too. Comus-First Utterance is probably one of the strangest records you will ever hear-- but became a cult favorite for the newly emerging psych folk scene. I could go on, but I think that gives you some context. One of the artists told me that the main reason they were all in London was that rents were cheap; their proximity made working and playing together a pretty natural outgrowth of what was happening in post-Swinging ’60s London. And of course there were studios, equipment vendors and clubs. Joe Boyd (who represented Fairport, Nick Drake and a number of others) opened a club called the UFO that was a scene for a while. The original house band was Pink Floyd. In short, there was a lot going on, different than the NY or later LA scenes.
PS: a lot of what I really like are the obscurities that fell threw the cracks, commercially. Though Sabbath and Gentle Giant were among the best known bands signed to Vertigo, there were some pretty amazing records that came out on that label in the period 1969-73, from bands that were never radio friendly, but had killer chops. Several worth mentioning are: Gracious!, Patto and Cressida.

Current Berlin rent is quite low though rising, yet I don't hear anything happening there except techno clubs. London might still have what it used to have. Just move one hour from the city and rent can be okay, just like New York. Not that convenient but not bad. 
Obscure bands, great concerts by well-known artists recorded but never released..

When I bought my Klipsch Heresy III speakers last year there was a "free album" offer sticker on the boxes. One per speaker...so I went to the Klipsch site and wound up with 2 10" 33rpm mono albums, one of early Monk, and a Miles Davis thing...AMAZING quality things that sound so good in all ways (even with my stereo phono cartridge) that it blew my little mind. If anybody needs to see where Jazz went, listen to people like Vijay Iyer and Craig Taborn, and many many more current geniuses...it's alive and well.