The easiest way to sort through the thicket is to pick music you like and then do a little research on best pressings of particular albums. Many of the "audiophile" lists place sound quality first--no surprise- but the music may or may not be to your liking.
A lot of the discussion on the Hoffman forum is devoted to comparing different masterings, which may involve different source material. There is no real rule of thumb-- I can stack up 10 different pressings of the same album and each has different strengths and weaknesses.
If you are after rock records and are on a budget, the old Warner "green label" (followed by the Burbank 'palm trees' label) had some great artists and superb recordings--these are common "bin" records in used record stores and can also be found online fairly cheaply.
The easiest way to use Hoffman's site is to pick a band or album title and do a browser search for "best vinyl pressing of X." You will likely get some search engine hits from the Hoffman site. The most informative threads are those that compare the merits of different pressings rather than ones that have conclusory statements about a single "best" pressing.
One tell-tale is often the identity of the mastering engineer; another is the pressing plant. These are discerned from inscriptions in the deadwax on the record. Learning to decode this stuff is a little like reading hieroglyphics, but once you've spent a little time with this kind of detail, you'll be pretty comfortable knowing what to look for. For certain albums, there are "known" good pressings.
My experience, making direct comparisons of different pressings of the same album, is that there is no easy to follow general rule that is entirely predictive of sonics. So much depends on the original recording, then mastering, the plant and condition of the particular copy as well as your sonic preferences and system bias. I have also found that later issues of particular record can sound better than first pressings, but it is really record by record.
A lot of the discussion on the Hoffman forum is devoted to comparing different masterings, which may involve different source material. There is no real rule of thumb-- I can stack up 10 different pressings of the same album and each has different strengths and weaknesses.
If you are after rock records and are on a budget, the old Warner "green label" (followed by the Burbank 'palm trees' label) had some great artists and superb recordings--these are common "bin" records in used record stores and can also be found online fairly cheaply.
The easiest way to use Hoffman's site is to pick a band or album title and do a browser search for "best vinyl pressing of X." You will likely get some search engine hits from the Hoffman site. The most informative threads are those that compare the merits of different pressings rather than ones that have conclusory statements about a single "best" pressing.
One tell-tale is often the identity of the mastering engineer; another is the pressing plant. These are discerned from inscriptions in the deadwax on the record. Learning to decode this stuff is a little like reading hieroglyphics, but once you've spent a little time with this kind of detail, you'll be pretty comfortable knowing what to look for. For certain albums, there are "known" good pressings.
My experience, making direct comparisons of different pressings of the same album, is that there is no easy to follow general rule that is entirely predictive of sonics. So much depends on the original recording, then mastering, the plant and condition of the particular copy as well as your sonic preferences and system bias. I have also found that later issues of particular record can sound better than first pressings, but it is really record by record.