Excellent sounding LPs


To follow up on my post about “ Playable LPs” is a question I was really trying to get at.  I used the wrong term in “Playable.”   What I’m really trying to ascertain is what percentage of LPs sound really good on your system? I have 2000-3000 LPs but they vary widely in SQ.  I’m sure you would agree 90% is not the case.

So, to rephrase my question, what percentage of your records are near or at audiophile quality?

 

rvpiano

True audiophile quality, not talking sounding good, 15%. When I had under 1k vinyl, purchased mainly in the late 60s and 70s, only 5% of those where of audiophile quality. Since then, I have now over 2k vinyl and 15% are of audiophile quality. That's because as my equipment got better, I got more conscious of looking for great music that was also specially well recorded. However done buying vinyl now. Lucky I started decades ago, prices have gone through the roof.

less than 10% for sure. I refuse to spend more than $20 for a record. My best ones never cost more than $15. But I only buy pressings from the last century.

+1, @ghdprentice 

The emphasis should always be on building a well-balanced system. That’s what truly allows you to get the most out of any playback format or component. 

20% sound "Great" with the caveat that "great" just compares favorably with a "good/great" sounding streamed song or album and that there are many more examples of "outstanding" digital records that far out perform the best vinyl recordings imo. 

So, now here's the gist as to why I don't play vinyl much anymore. I too assembled a vinyl and entire system setup that allowed vast majority of albums, not just audiophile recordings to provide very nice sound quality. And so, from that standpoint and the physical condition of albums sound quality just fine. The issue is vast majority of my 3k albums nothing special as far as hot stampers or engineered especially well. Many are likely later  generation stampers,  many likely copied from later generation masters, some probably copied from safety masters. In other words these recordings don't come close to revealing sound quality of original recordings. I started noticing this more and more as my digital setups increased in quality, many recordings began to be challenged by equal or superior sound quality  from my digital setups. And then streams and cd's were more often being remastered from first generation masters, many more vinyl albums left in dust by superior streams and cd's. So now we arrive at today where I prefer streams and cd rips sound quality vs many of my albums, vinyl rig sits unused. And then I'll repeat myself by saying I now prefer listening to music on random play or stream of conscious choice where only one cut per album likely to be played.