Good sounding Deutsche Grammophon recordings

Agree. Totally overrated. DG had ONE advantage (at their time) they paid the musicians immediately .They have a huge repertoire, but they did create "Digital Sound" (thin, flat, dead) into their pressings even when no one did know what that is. Compared to Mercury/Decca/London Standard light years below. Well, we have to go back to understand it. All companies used that stuff what was available at their time. And they had recording teams which made the best out of it. But none of them did know how good they really were (Except Robert Fine probably). We do that rating now, 40-50 years later. We can say now, they had equipment which was fantastic but no one did know that at that time. They went on with technical "progress" used more mikes, used mixing desks, used Dynagroove cutters and so on and on....
Deutsche Gramophone was simply too late. They started at their point with equipment which was at that time the "Standard". And again, now, 40 years later, we can rate that and based on that, they fail. That "Standard" is mediocre from sonics. That's it.

I concur with the general view: great artists but often mediocre sound- or worse.
Two examples that span the range of sound quality: Dvorak cello concerto with Rostropovich/Karajan- glorious sound, analogue at its best.
Beethoven's 7 th in a truly great performance by Carlos Kleiber-thin, dry shallow sound,really awful. I just can't listen to it . So sad.
I can think of several more examples of bad sound but would like to hear of some more good ones.

I have many DG LP's which include the complete Beethoven set. These are all DG recordings and from the get-go I was disappointed in the sound quality. Several years ago, I upgraded my playback to a Basis turntable w/a Vector 3 tonearm and a Transfiguration Axia cartridge and I cannot believe how much better these records sound. All my previous disappointments have been eradicated. The sound is suddenly wonderful and fulfilling.

I now listen to this set much more than I previously did.

Jetrexpro--no, afraid I don't. Don't think it's a tube/solid state question as much as the recording philosophy, though perhaps it might be linked to the thinness/skewed tonal balance. I do notice a difference between the earlier DGs, like Karajan's first Beethoven cycle in the 60s, vs. later, worse-sounding, ones, like his second Beethoven cycle from the 70s.

Rrm,
Thanks for the tip. just picked up a near mint LP of the Dvorak cello concerto with Rostropovich/Karajan on amazon. Have it on CD and like it but the record should sound much better. Agree with you about the Carlos Kleiber/Beethoven - have it on CD - amazing performance but crappy sound. Also agree that every upgrade to ones vinyl rig makes some of these DG records sound better. But it is hard to ignore the bad sounding ones when you A/B them with the great sounding ones.
Rcprince - we also have Karajan's second Beethoven cycle from the 70s. Not much good I can say about it.
Jet