Audiophile LP's


That title sounds pretty general but I didn't know how else to name it to attract some attention. For several decades in the production of vinyl the sound quality has widely varied due to recording process, pressing, and other factors. I remember years ago that some commonly available LP's were also available in a much higher quality (and a higher price) than the standard LP and offered superior sound quality. Can't remember all the terms to describe these records but direct-to-disk, master recording, and probably a few others I can't recall. Back then I never purchased any of those since when the needle dropped and music was there what else mattered? To buy a record at 2 or 3 times the standard price didn't make sense to anyone I knew at the time.
My question....I know that numerous sellers on the web list LP's for sell as "mastered", "audiophile", and the like. Back in the day were current sellers offering these truly superior records just trying a ripoff? If not, are most of the ones still in existence only are owned by private collectors?


jrpnde
Tom Port of Better Records listens to dozens if not 50 to 100 pressings of an LP.  There may or may not be a hot stamper among them.  However, after 30 years in the business, he is knows which stampers, countries of origin and pressing plants have the potential to be a hot stamper.  Then he cleans and grades the record.  He has a full time staff doing this.  So, his hot stampers maybe expensive, but you generally get the best sounding performance on LP that is available.  If one has to purchase $100s of an LP to find one or two hot stampers, then there is a cost involved.  He dumps the less than hot stampers for sale for $1 to $5, often at a loss.  I've purchased many of his tossed LPs (Jazz reissues or late pressings, Classical issues that are just not exceptional sounding recordings). Although I'm satisfied with them, that doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer the hot stampers he sells.  They do sound amazing on my high end system.

I've had to do the same thing with some of my rare ethnic recordings where I buy every copy available to find a clean and hopefully good sounding copy.  It's expensive and time consuming.  E.g. I'm on my 9th copy of Israel Today on Capitol with Trio Aravah without finding a clean copy.  The CD reissue was made from an LP.   I'm on my 7th copy of Sounds with Marshall & Manne on Capitol, all good sounding but none better than VG condition.  I'd pay $50 for a clean copy.
The first pressings of RCA Victor's legendary 'Shaded Dog' stereo LPs were vastly superior to later pressings, especially if the performance was not crammed into the full 30 to 33 minutes per side. Two perfect examples are the original RCA LSC-2068, the Rachmaninov Second Piano Concerto with Artur Rubinstein, Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony, and RCA LSC-6149, a complete recording of Puccini's Turandot. The Rachmaninov was originally just that single concerto without its later Liszt Concerto No. 1 companion piece, and the placement of the piano and the orchestra was perfectly captured in a concert hall ambience; the opera set was superb, with characters moving about as if on stage, and absolutely no distortion, even in the loudest choral and orchestral climaxes. Why did later pressings sound so distorted and undefined?
Dear friends: I forgot these superb labels: Water lily, Wilson Audio ( we have to remember is that D.Wilson first than all is a recoprding engineer way before he designed Wilson speakers. ) a must to have/listen it's an outstanding experience,  S2S Sense Corporation, Banshee Empire.

All the labels I named in this thread have astonishing quality recorded levels and second to none.

Those " one " side LP recordings are something  2die4.

R.