What is the VERY BEST CD album you've ever heard?

Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra - New World Records 

Slatkin conducting 

Michael Colgrass -Deja vu / light spirit 

Jacob Druckman- Aureole

Many more gems in my archives!

kingbr, second the Diana Krall SACD.  For something completely different, Point Yellow, Dolby Atmos edition...the "stage" moves around the room using various pairs of 7.1 speakers.

@bigtwin DEFINITELY Jimmy Smith/Harvey Mason supposed to be bombastic!

"Ella and Louis"

The Jazz in the Pawnshop series are really fine sounding and great music to boot.  I listen to them over and over again. 

Anne Bisson - UHQCD - Blue Mind

@tylermunns

"pop," as a musical genre, evolved primarily from bluegrass/mountain music and blues.  You're entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.

If, to you, pop means popular, then any genre can be "pop," depending on who you're talking to.

Looking for a CD or Album with the song 'Like Young" by Amdre Previn on it. Found the song on the CD, KTEL Jazz classics. Turns out all the songs are great  jazz hits.

The Stones great rock just about any cd is great but I'll mention Beggars Banquet.  my favorite stones song "Goodbye Ruby Tuesday", great rock music and great memories. As for their CD quality they all sucked. I mean imagine if the Stones actually had a well-engineered musical CD.

Johnto got it right the best group ever simply the Beatles. It was a time in society that was right for Peppers. Pot and LSD came on the scene,along with fond memories of 20 plus college kids in a black lit room passing joints around with "a day in the life"  playing on the turntable. Woo let me turn back the clock 50 years lol.

You folks who think everything is rock or pop.... I was around before rock n roll existed as well as pop although the other classes of music were already there for a long time. We certainly didn't call that music rock or pop for sure.

Frank mc 195 agree+1

Difficult choice. An album I am fond of from A to Z is L.A. women from The Doors (remastered)

@kb673 Yeah, you really don’t want to play this game.
The facts are all there for you. Some of us already have them. Some don’t.
Here are some Cliff Notes, a “Fake Book,” if you will: just Google “Tin Pan Alley.”
Then come and talk to me about “mountain music/bluegrass and blues.”
There you go again with “genre.”
If “pop” is a “genre,” please define it.

Nirvana Unplugged. I dont listen to ANY other Nirvana - but that CD is one of the best Ive ever heard. Couple live Dead albums come really close as well. Cant wait to comb this thread and discover some new music - great post. 

Leonard Cohen - "Ten New Songs"   Fantastic songs, well-engineered audio.

Kevin Godley/Lol Creme's "Consequences".

Love/hate.

Jazz at the Pawnshop

Spyboy, Emmy Lou Harris. You're there. Hard to find, out of print before the vinyl resurgence. 

@8th-note I was happy to have seen Col. Bruce and ARU a few times. He might have been a strange character but the music was impeccable. I am basically frightened - by how good it was.

@czarivey Guess Coldplay is pop too then. Maybe even Metallica.

I really can’t answer the OP’s question. Choosing ONE CD as the "best" is nearly impossible. Maybe one by ELP or YES - but which one? Then you have crazy classical pieces that are staggering. Singer songwriters with good playing and great vocals. Molly Tuttle of late, etc.

Ah, so many CDs (or vinyl) and so little time...

Any SACD on a PS Audio SACD player. And standard CDs shine brighter as well. Agree with the above regarding Live at Fillmore East, and Take Five.

For the category of great live CD performance and mediocre recording quality, I would nominate Delaney & Bonnie & Friends On Tour, With Eric Clapton.

all-right.

Let's call the common stuff mainstream whether it's rock or pop or hop of any kind.

Mainstream usually can be found in thrift stores for less than a buck

Blood Sweat and Tears, Original Master Recording. 24 kt Gold Plated. 

I've had this for a while now, but finally cracked it open: Spheres II by Delerium.  Spacey, ambient, juicy, spooky, moody instrumentals.   Sounds exquisite. 

@tylermunns  

Terms "pop" and "rock and roll" have been in use by music industry professionals, since early- to mid-1950s.  I entered into what I thought was a discussion.  If this is your idea of a game, you can declare yourself the winner by forfeit.

I have a couple I never get tired of Jeff Beck Wired and Special Efx Confidential

1978 Denon release of Archie Shepp and Dollar Brand titled Duet. The cleanest, most revealing recording I've ever heard in any format, regardless of genre. Excellent dynamic range, unmolested transients, superb definition. Play this when you want to gauge just how revealing a system truly is.

https://www.discogs.com/sell/release/2738403?ev=rb

@kb673 You said, “You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.”
A clear insinuation I don’t have my facts straight, or am willfully denying “the facts.” That’s where my use of the words, “you don’t want to play this game” came in.
I’ll just cliff note it here for you:
(from Encyclopedia Britannica)
“Tin Pan Alley, genre of American popular music that arose in the late 19th century.”

Just because “(How Much Is) That Doggie in the Window?” is a bit less fancy (although the two top singles of 1911, Irving Berlin’s ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ and Harry Von Tilzer’s ‘I Want a Girl’ are pretty darn simple songs) than the typical pop songs of the ‘00-‘40s doesn’t make those early-20th century songs “not pop.”

If pop is, as you say, a “genre,” then how does describe and define this, “genre”?  
I’ll happily receive, with open arms, these “facts” I am ignorant of.

The best cd album in my collection is Steve Miller's Fly Like an Eagle Gold DCC cd and it's the remastering by Steve Hoffman that puts this cd a cut above the rest.

The Doobie Brothers- Taking it to the Streets

All their albums are well recorded

Donald Fagen “ The Nightfly “ and Andreas Vollenweider “ Book of Roses”

Donald Fagen “ The Nightfly “ and Andreas Vollenweider “ Book of Roses”

Wow that's hard but I have a few that are the best sounding in CD format.

Eva Cassidy "Nightbird" 

Palladin Ensemble "An Excess of Pleasure" on Linn label.

Jennifer Warnes " Famous Blue Raincoat"

Not sure if these are the best streaming selections and definitely NOT in my top tier of Vinyl releases. 

The Collected History of La Scala.

Great and timely post as recently been organizing/cataloging my CD collection: 

Kiri Te Kanawa: "Mozart Opera Arias", London Symphony

Buena Vista Social Club (one of several CD's produced by Ry Cooder I love)

Ry Cooder "Jazz", "Paradise and Lunch", etc.

Gary Burton: "Reunion"

Paul Michael Meredith: "The Luxury of Love"

Beck - Sea Change.   Mofi special limited edition CD.  Beck at its best, for me.

@heretobuy . I grew up with Fats Waller's grandson, his great grandson is actually an NBA player.. I grew up in a famous area in NY where there were tons of musicians  and artist; James Brown, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Leana Horn, heck even Al Roker, LL Cool J, many others. When we were little and didn't have a neighborhood pool, Count Basie would open is pool to the kids in the neighborhood. Can you guess the area in NY? :)

@gumbedamit Without Googling, Queens? I know Louis Armstrong lived there.

With 11,000 CDs and a very diverse music library/music genre that is too difficult to choose.  I have many more great sounding (mostly uncompressed) CDs versus my 28,500 LPs to choose from (LPs can suffer from compression, vinyl problems, subgenerational mastering e.g. Angel classical records versus EMI originals, U.S.Beatles versus Parlophone, etc).  

A second + for Jazz at the Pawnshop.  A new 2021 2-disk CD version from

AudioNautes is Ultimate HQ/Direct from original tapes/blah/blah and

is even more stunning.  Amazing that this is a live recording from the '70s.

Gumbedamit Saint Albans. I live in the neighborhood.

@lucky53 You induced me to put on my first-day-it-hit-the-stores LP of The Doors' L.A. Woman. To be sure, the opening cut is a little relentlessly hard-left/hard-right/center, but it's also pretty clean. Luckily, the second and third cuts are far better. It's still very much left-right-center, but there's a lot less compression and a good deal more space.  I've just made it to the title track. Tone quality and clarity are getting ever better. The band is rocking. Yeah!

You are wellcome. Just listened the entire cd yesterday evening with a friend. The solo on the drums is wonderfull in the WASP track.

PS : Jim Morisson rest in peace in Paris. His grave is at Père Lachaise cemetery with lot of flowers.

Diana Krahl, The Girl In The Other Room and Roger Waters, Amused To Death.

LOL on the Beatles debate.  

Ask: Who are the greatest of all rock bands?  

I do believe the Beatles would be on the list.  

I just read Tylermunn's post about Glenn Gould and have downloaded his collection on Youtube.Is this a fairly good quality sound? Thank you Sorry to go "out there",but,to me Grand Funk Railroad's "On Time" has some amazing passages-the guitar crossing over from one channel to the other for example.I think this is my first podt for some time,so I hope I'm doing it in the approved manner

Here are a few, and no I'm not a huge grunge fan, but the Unplugged CDs are extremely well recorded:

Supertramp Crime of the Century

Supertramp Even in the Quietest Moments

Stone Temple Pilots MTV Unplugged

Alice In Chains MTV Unplugged

Nirvana MTV Unplugged

Natalie Merchant MTV Unplugged

Memoirs of a Geisha Soundtrack

More than any other single group, The Beatles expanded the range of what rock and roll could be more than any other group before or since. To deny their achievement by demoting it to some lesser form because of that achievement is perverse. The Beatles vs. Rolling Stones question is quite similar to the Raymond Chandler vs. Dashiell Hammett in hardboiled crime fiction. The Beatles like Chandler tend to win by acclamation, and because of that Stones and Hammett partisans push their belief with a particular zeal. Like Hammett, the one area where the Stones have the decisive advantage is toughness. The difference between the two in both cases is little more than a nickel's worth. If I were getting on a lifeboat and had to jettison either my Beatles or my Stones records, I'd keep the Beatles.

The Steve Wilson remix of Chicago II sounds pretty good to me along with  The Beatles Abbey Road.