# What are the must have classical lps on vinyl..........



## julide (Jul 24, 2020)

What records sound particularly well on vinyl? Do you have a preferred cartridge for classical listening?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

The ones (in the US, anyway) people pay big bucks for are good-condition "Shaded dog" RCA Living Stereo LPs, Mercury Living Presence LPs, early London/Decca stereo and some other dedicated audiophile labels like Command/Everest. 

If you don't want to pay massively for this, you can frequently find the mono versions of things like RCA Living Stereo and Decca stereo recordings for dollar-bin prices, and they can sound fantastic. 



Also jumping to the digital era - Telarc LPs are fabulous, even if some consider the idea of digitally-recorded LPs a heresy.


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## progmatist (Apr 3, 2021)

julide said:


> What records sound particularly well on vinyl? Do you have a preferred cartridge for classical listening?


For listening to mono records, a cartridge designed specifically for mono records will sound much, much better. Playing a mono record with a stereo cartridge will result in the two channels being partially out of phase. When the stylus follows the groove in one direction, one magnet is being pushed into the coil while the other is being pulled out. When it swings in the opposite direction, the reverse is true.


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## Josquin13 (Nov 7, 2017)

Any Japanese LP pressings, from whatever the label, used to be highly coveted in the days of the LP, & are usually exceptional, along with German pressings for DG, and LP records from Philips in the Netherlands; as well as British EMI and French EMI LPs (not to be confused with EMI's "Angel" label in the states, which wasn't as good). British (& European) Decca LP recordings were also often more highly regarded than Decca's "London" label here in the states. While in the states, Telarc used to be good, if you can find any LP recordings on Telarc that you like.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

Josquin13 said:


> Any Japanese LP pressings, from whatever the label, used to be highly coveted in the days of the LP, & are usually exceptional, along with German pressings for DG, and LP records from Philips in the Netherlands; as well as British EMI and French EMI LPs (not to be confused with EMI's "Angel" label in the states, which wasn't as good). British (& European) Decca LP recordings were also often more highly regarded than Decca's "London" label here in the states. While in the states, Telarc used to be good, if you can find any LP recordings on Telarc that you like.


I never had very many of them, but my Telefunken LPs were among my favorites. Also, some stores such as Acoustic Sounds have audiophile re-releases of some great old albums.


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## JohnP (May 27, 2014)

julide said:


> What records sound particularly well on vinyl? Do you have a preferred cartridge for classical listening?


I'm sorry I'm late finding this thread. Maybe you can still use this.

I'm just beginning to delve into my vinyl collection after years of sojourning with digital. So I'm not prepared to offer suggestions from my own experience. But you might find the following list helpful. The late Harry Pearson founded The Absolute Sound, one of the leading journals of audiophile-dom for many decades. He began this compilation of the best sounding LPs.

https://www.theabsolutesound.com/articles/2019-tas-super-lp-list


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