The single most important figure (imo) in the vinyl LP reissue business.

No disrespect to the OP or Chad,  I saw the CBS piece too, thought it was a great story about him and his building an impressive life and business. But I’ll happily stand aside as the stampede for reissued vinyl continues leading well intentioned audiophile off the cliff, as that will mean more  good vintage vinyl to be had for the taking.

I’ve  learned from people like Tom Post and Robert Brook, that most of us audiophiles have little or no idea how good the sound can be from good used vinyl, until we make the effort to build front end systems that will play the music of actual 40-50 year old vinyl unforgiving, and wondrously neutral. That’s not  what your souped-up reissue does. It makes it more palatable to play on less resolving systems. The other way is hard, and it’s not cheap, it requires far more of what little time we get for this great hobby, but at the risk of there being less vintage vinyl available to snag, I urge everyone who wants the very best sounding records to listen take a few minutes and read Tom Post. I know he isn’t the cuddliest audiophile, and even rubs many the wrong way. But what he’s saying about reissues  vs original records shoild, IMHO, be taken very seriously.

I have begun revamping my system (I recently purchased a set of Legacy Focus speakers, here on Audiogon,  like Tom’s, to replace my modified 1.7i Maggie’s), and started  vetting vintage vinyl and  using Tom’s suggested system to  clean them. The results have been quite literally astounding.  And I’ve only scratched the surface.  I haven’t been at this as long as many of you here, and know some of you are may scoff that I’m just another Tom Post fan-boy, acolyte,  “true believer “.  But let me end by saying, like many of you, I just want the best music I can get.  I’ve been convinced it’s rarely, if ever, in reissues.  Just my two cents.  No harm intended.

@audiodidact do you mean Tom Port?

@hifiguy42 

Right.  Tom Port!  (Too late at night!). Thanks so much!  

You can pay Tom Port (and his team) his absurd prices, but you can also do what he does: buy multiple copies of a title and compare them all for yourself. I’ve done that with numerous titles, Near Mint condition copies of 1970’s albums on Asylum and Warner Brothers/Reprise Records. I find them regularly in local used record shops for five bucks.

I visited Tom’s apartment in Sherman Oaks in the 1990’s (I lived three blocks away), to buy a German pressing of The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour (THE version of the album to own). I have to assume he has upgraded his hi-fi since then, because the one he had at the time was garden variety mid-fi.  Mine was a pair of QUAD ESL’s with transmissionline-loaded KEF B139 woofers, a VPI HW-19 with a Well Tempered arm and Grado cartridge, an ARC SP-6b pre-amp and pair of Atma-Sphere M60 power amps, a far more transparent system than his.

@bdp24,

I suggest you try to catch up on what Tom Port has been doing lately. Read his blog, I'm sure you'll see his system would have little trouble representing itself against so-called hi-end systems.  But, the point of my post wasn't Tom Port, or his system, it was about reissued vinyl, like the kind that Chad and others are  producing, vs. good original vinyl, the kind that people, yes, like Tom Port, believe are far superior to almost everything that is manufactured today.

Yes, the rig, the room, etc, etc,  make a huge difference.  But that shouldn't stop most of the people here, who will spend serious money on setups and  equipment when the need or the want arises. Speaking only for myself, I have found that, getting very good sound from vinyl  is a lot harder work than I thought it would be when I first got into this. People like Tom, who is one of those rare examples of someone whose gotten beyond expecting his music to sound good just because he bought this or that brand of equipment, are audiophiles we should try to learn from as much as we can.  

When it comes to reissues, many of us may already have a decent copy stuck on  the shelf, just a good cleaning away from blowing our minds,  if we are willing to spend the time to set things up right.  The final point I'll reiterate: we've all chased the dragon, coughed-up big dough for the most touted new reissued classic: expecting bingo!  Great sound, Right?  Only to find we're not playing that record as often as we thought we would.  

And just a tiny note  more on equipment, I just bought a pair of 29 year old speakers to replace a fairly new set of very good speakers.  Why would I do that?  Certainly not because they're the most expensive, or most talked about speaker.  No, it's because they're the right speaker for that room .  The sound from them is the best I've heard, in my room.  That may prove nothing to others, but it's shows I've not been disappointed while heading in the direction few have traveled,  thanks to audiophiles like Tom Port and Robert Brook.