10 sonically best rock recordings ?

There will be some confusion about who is in the "rock"
catagory, but here are some excellent CDs

Dire Straits...Sultans Of Swing, or any DS CD really
Pink Floyd...Dark Side Moon, also Wall, Wish You Were Here
Tom Petty...Anthology
REM...Automatic, New Adventures in HIFI
Roxy Music...Avalon remaster
Cranberries...Everybody Else (1st album)
Radiohead...OK Computer
ZZ Top...Greatest Hits
Stray Cats...Runaway Boys (retrospective 81-92)
Massive Attack....Mezzanine
NIN...Fragile

I purposely don't mention Cowboy Junkies, Lucinda Williams,
Jennifer Warnes etc, they sound good but are over recommended here.

Slawney unfortunately most here are not alternative rock listeners, some comments on your selections as they pertain to CD versions, my vinyl/Linn Lp12 days ended in 1991 but I had some of those in vinyl.

First the Big Star Cds are real let down, bright lean recordings, I had the #1 record/radio city CD but had to sell it because of poor recording quality, unfortunate.

Cocteau Twins and 4AD label in general had great vinyl, but CDs are hit and miss, for album "Head over Heels" opening track "mama was moth" has huge soundstage and explosive bass percussions, and "angelhood" rocks like no other CT track. Best sound for CT in CD line is "victorialand"
worst is "bluebell knoll" especially first 3 tracks. One of the best vinyl records I had was 4AD artist This Mortal Coil's 1st album, CD is nowhere near the same sound quality unfortunately, but still good.

Slawney,"This Mortal Coil" was a collection of many 4AD recording artists jamming with each other, including members
of Cocteau Twins,Dead Can Dance,Wolggang Press,Cindy Talk
,ColorBox and others. There are three TMC albums, the first and best one called "It Will End in Tears" is the one I was refering to above, 12 tracks beautiful music.

Dave not too surprising (but unfortunate) that home made CDR from vinyl original is better than retail CD. It is also quite simple to record your own cassette tapes at home for car use, as I do that "blow away" any retail cassette version.

Yes this is remastered by Bob Ludwig and sounds great. The early albums master tapes were not great so those songs have limited improvement, but all songs from "Dam the Torpedos" to present have never sounded better.

I have also mentioned elsewhere that "Dam the Torpedos" and "Hard Promises" his two best albums are available remastered from the same sessions with Bob Ludwig.

Gregg, "Music for the Masses" is a regular album, part of the dark trilogy of Depeche ablums 1986-90:
-Black Celebration
-Music for the Masses
-Violator
This represents the peak of their creative talents, as they created a new identity for group which is in stark contrast to the Vince Clark era Depeche which was lighter more pop oriented. Undoubtedly dissappointed some of the "speak & spell" fans but this is much more sophisticated/deep/dark material, although I haven't heard new album subsequent albums fail to live up to this high standard.

And yes the sound quality is quite good.