audiophile rockers

LPs by Ryan Adams are sonically excellent, and he's definitely an analog guy. His latest, "Ashes & Fire" is one of the better recorded albums (vinyl) of 2011.

Re: Tom Petty

A friend who (until recently) worked at Warner Bros once commented to me that Petty's the label's pickiest guy (on sound) by far.

Marty

All of Mark Knopfler's recordings sound excellent. Sailing to Philadelphia and Shangri-La are two stand outs.

I second the Knopfler recommendation, Saliing... and Shangri-La do sound exquisite, especially in surround...

-RW-

I was at a festival in a big ampitheatre years ago and the sound was just crap all day so muddy in the bass and shrill in the highs you couldn't understand the lyrics. Tom petty and Neil young were the last to play. Somehow magically the whole PA system was fixed for both of their sets. They sounded great and the Neil young show in particular stands out as one of my favorite live shows I've seen.

I did a bit of recording in my time and I came to the realization that I would rather have a great monitoring system than front end gear. If you can't really make sense of what you are hearing how can you make the right choice on what to do with a mix?