Sounds like you are looking for rock. Are you resistant to older pressings?
brian davison-every which way- on mercury- shouldn’t cost you more than 30 dollars for a clean copy- very much like old Traffic- blues shouter with some exotic and jazz motifs;
Captain Beyond doesn’t suck;
You can spend real money on Vertigo Swirls- I recommend the 1970 Annual, a two record set that is relatively cheap, and has many of the great early Vertigo bands on a great sounding compilation
Gnu-
Blast Furnace- 2017 Danish reissue of an old hard rock band that kicks ass melodically and musically;
King Crimson Toronto 2016 Live 4 LPs some of the sides, like Starless, are stunning;
A reissue I’m writing up now- Blackwater Park-Dirt Box- expensive as an original pressing- the Svart reissue from Finland is fine- and cheap--very hard rock.
I tend to look for material off the beaten path of standard "audiophile" reissues.
There are also an awful lot of older rock records that are cheap and sound good if you are willing to deal with condition issues to find unmolested copies, e.g. many of the Warner Green Labels sound terrific.
I’m a big fan of Zep, but have indulged in early pressings, though I have some of the Classic Records reissues. None are terribly good recordings, but some pressings sound much better than others.
A lot of Steve Wilson’s work is good if you like "prog"; so too, are some of the Opeth albums, which are more accessible if you start with the later naturally voiced records (e.g. Damnation) and then work your way back to the heavier stuff, e.g. Blackwater Park- named after the German band mentioned above.
It really depends on your musical taste- I was strictly analog all the way on LPs but some of the digital remasters and natively digital recordings on LP sound very good. These can give you a wider range of material to sort through than the usual warhorses. Almost all the great early Clapton stuff (The Cream, Blind Faith, Layla) goes from mediocre to really bad sounding, though folks like Unplugged (which is a digitally sourced record).
One of the most splendid sounding audiophile reissues is the SRV album with Tin Pan Alley cut at 45- from Chad. Originally sold only as part of an expensive boxed set, I think you can now buy the albums individually. (I live in Austin now, where SRV is god, but am not a giant fan). I’m more likely to listen to Rory Gallagher, Roy Buchanan, Robin Trower or other guitar hero records.
Have fun- it’s an adventure!
