Excellent sounding LPs

Since records (and CDs to a much lesser extent) vary so widely in SQ I can’t see how anyone with a very large collection can honestly say the vast percentage sound excellent.

The Vintage Vinyl sound quality varied wildly, and it requires a lot of research, time, & sometimes money to get the best Vinyl.   The first vinyl pressings are always the most desirable, and for Rock, whether the Albums were first pressed in the UK or USA sometimes makes a big difference.  Researching on Hoffmans site and the Discogs site can help you identify the best pressings for your favorite specific vintage albums.  So, it is quite challenging to get a "First pressing", "mint", vintage album which will sound like the artist is in your room. 

Many of the UK bands delivered dup master tapes to the USA for Vinyl creation which ended up very inferior to the UK albums.  Some examples are Elton John, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, & Jethro Tull, Aqualung, which was an actual dispute with the Artist and "nobody" got the master tape.  The Master Tape was only used on the latest "Reissue" which is the best sounding version of Aqualung. 

As another example, here is a picture of my best "First Pressing" UK, Jimi Hendrix, Electric Ladyland.  You can see the original numbers crossed out in the wax whch helps identify it as a first pressing. This first pressing was actually mixed by Hendrix and sounds different than all other versions. Instruments are more upfront, sound moving from channel to channel in the middle of a riff, etc...  This first pressing had such high dynamic range (peaks and valleys in the grooves) that the cheap record players of the time would skip, which caused them to reduce the dynamic range on the next pressings.  In addition, when the tapes were delivered the the USA, they could not understand Hendrix instructions on the mix, so, the USA versions have a non-Hendrix mix. 

Since the master tapes degrade over time which hurts the reissues and remasters, some of these "mint" first pressings are the best you will ever hear from your favorite artist.

Note:  Some of the "Super Disks", "Half Speed Masters" from back in the day were also exceptional.  For example, Van Morrison, Moondance, and a couple of the Heart Albums. 

A vinyl collection with a vast variety of music genres including Jazz/Vocal/Classical and Opera can easily achieve 25% Audiophile SQ without "cherry-picking" SQ over content. The near Audiophile SQ is much more subjective, due to one’s grading standards and genre biases. Personally my goal is to reach 33% Audiophile status and 66% near Audiophile SQ without choosing SQ over content. The bottom line is we are all prisoners to the recording quality. No system has the ability to change that(98%+ lol) but we can still control the amount of vinyl dreck in our collection.

@hjdca points out a single instance of possible inferior pressing. So many of my vintage rock pressings lacking in resolution, transparency, bass, dynamics. And its not my vinyl or general system at fault, the good pressings or remastered vinyl is just fine in all areas. 

“Since records (and CDs to a much lesser extent) vary so widely in SQ I can’t see how anyone with a very large collection can honestly say the vast percentage sound excellent.”

@rvpiano 

This is where it really pays to ask yourself — are you an impulsive buyer or do you take time to consider the two most important factors of any album: provenance and mastering? In my experience, carefully weighing those two before purchasing makes all the difference between an average recording and one that truly shines.