# Help me make some tough choices: how do I sort a huge record collection?



## Vinyl

After a good while in storage, my inherited record collection is now in boxes in my living room. 
I have agreed to splitting it up and having part of it in the living room, most of it in the upstairs "cave", and the rest back in the storage unit. 
I've got a shelving system of stacked cubes, and I'm trying to limit the downstairs system to ten cubes. 
This will take less than a third of the records.

How do I make the best selection for the living room?

My first plan was to pick a few labels, but I've stuffed nine of the shelves now and I'm still only in the S's.

How would you choose what stays and what goes?


----------



## bigshot

If there are separate genres in the collection, I would try to divide them up into chunks that contain entire genres. If you pick "favorites" you'll forget whether something is a favorite or not and find yourself looking in the wrong place for it all the time.


----------



## Vinyl

So far I've only made one genre based choice, which is that all opera goes upstairs. There's A LOT of opera. So far I've set aside more than 3 meters of opera. 
I'm taking all the showcase/highlight albums out, and I've kept only Decca, Deutsche, RCA, HM and Philips, except in a very few cases where I want specific works handy or displayed. I'm still in trouble. Hahahahaha. 
Genre won't work, I think. There's too much of some and too little of others.


----------



## JACE

A suggestion: Listen to the records that you've already unpacked in the living room. As you listen to each one, make a decision as to whether you'd like to hear it again. If you do, keep it on the main level. If not, put it aside -- maybe at the end of the shelf. After a while, you'll have a stack of records that you've "auditioned" and decided can be stored elsewhere. After you've accumulated a few, take them to storage and fill in the freed up shelf space with other records.

Repeat the process 'til you've gone through all of the LPs.

That way, *your ears* decide. No better way, I think. 

Of course, this'll take quite a long time. . .


----------



## Vinyl

There's upwards of 4,500 LPs, so that strategy won't work.


----------



## Guest

You can split the collection in periods,Baroque,Classic period etc.You can split further in symphonic and chamber,opera and songs etc.
Is is a lot of work but not neccesarily a nasty job,succes.
Ordering is essential otherwise it is impossible fo find it back.


----------



## Pugg

If only I could help you, in real that is, so curious.......


----------



## Vinyl

The (now) old man who collected all this over three decades took so good care of his records, most of them don't look played. Amazing.


----------



## Pugg

Vinyl said:


> The (now) old man who collected all this over three decades took so good care of his records, most of them don't look played. Amazing.


Rub it in even more


----------



## Guest

4500 LP'S in three decades ? Thats an awesome (healthy) appetite.


----------



## Vinyl

He was a bit of a hoarder. Records wasn't the only thing he collected. Sad story, really. 
The LP collection was in a room he hadn't set foot in for ten years, it was just too overwhelming. 
He's still alive, and I have heard that he's doing much better in some sort of assisted living. 
I just found a 10" that he got for christmas in 1962. Still in pretty good shape, although the first couple of hundred are a bit more worn than the rest. Looks like he learned.


----------



## Antiquarian

Through experience , I've found that the recommendation (sorting by genre, alphabetically) is pretty spot on. My personal LP collection is done _chronologically _, with Renaissance music in the beginning, up to more modern works at the end. I have them roughly sorted by period, and alphabetically within that period for the most part. I started this sorting scheme when I was young and clueless, and it works for me, but I don't think I would heartily recommend it for someone starting out.


----------



## Vinyl

If I were going to have everything in one room, I would agree. 
However, now I have to split it, and leave a selection downstairs. I guess what I really am asking is help to make this selection. 
Here's an illustration. This is the genre "OPERA". 175 unique units. What, four shelf meters? Hahahahahahahaaaaaa. Going a bit crazy.


----------



## Vinyl

Thanks for all your inputs, though. Appreciate.


----------



## Brahmsian Colors

The three chief considerations for me when I pare down a record collection are: 1) Is the sound too thin, bright, muddy on a recording? If yes, I will sell it or give it away. 2) Is the record surface worn too much or does it have too many pops and/or ticks? If yes, it will be gotten rid of. 3) Do I really dislike the interpretation or the music? Sometimes tastes or preferences do change, but if you're not certain, you might want to save it for now.


----------



## Pugg

Vinyl said:


> If I were going to have everything in one room, I would agree.
> However, now I have to split it, and leave a selection downstairs. I guess what I really am asking is help to make this selection.
> Here's an illustration. This is the genre "OPERA". 175 unique units. What, four shelf meters? Hahahahahahahaaaaaa. Going a bit crazy.
> 
> View attachment 88955


This looks good to me, keep using alphabetical order.


----------



## Vinyl

Hm. All my photos are rotated. I can't deal. Sorry.

The cardboard boxes go. Not sure yet: storage or (worst case) land fill. 
Upstairs and downstairs filled with goodies.


----------



## joen_cph

My classical LP collection is primarily organized in 4 sections:

1) Composers, alphabetically, all genres except opera

2) Operas, alphabetically after composer

3) Recitals & compilations: genres/instruments, and then artists alphabetically

4) Records I don´t listen to, but keep, yet away from the rest:
a. also have the CD version
b. the cover or its history is interesting

I´ve never fancied splitting up the collection after genres only. Results in each composer spread out in a lot of different sections, and some works difficult to categorize genre-wise.


----------



## Merl

When I had all my vinyl I split them into 2 categories - classical and rock/pop/etc. My rock, etc stuff was ordered alphabetically and so was the classical. Classical was ordered by composer surname and then I filed orchestral music first, alphabetically according to the type of piece. So a concerto came before a symphony and a piano concerto came before a violin concerto. After the orchestral it was chamber music, then solo instruments and lastly vocal music. I used the old Penguin guides as that seemed the most logical way for me. I order my CDs in the same way. Incidentally, box sets of symphony cycles or string quartet sets and cycles made up of single CDs always come before individual performances. I've only got about 600 vinyl left after sytematically selling it off over the past 3 years.


----------



## Vinyl

I have settled on a "first draught".

Rules: 
-Opera on its own. Alphabetically by composer, then chronologically.
-Living room, or "on display", if you like: Most varieties of Decca, EMI, RCA, Philips, DG, Harmonia Mundi, Telefunken, plus a few smaller labels (Hyperion, BIS...), alphabetically by composer, then (roughly) like Merl's system of categories. Thanks for the Penguin reference. 
-Upstairs: L'Oiseau-Lyre (I know it's Decca, but there's *so many*...), Erato, Nonesuch, Supraphon, a few other labels, alphabetically, and the full Telefunken Leonhardt/Harnoncourt set of Bach Cantatas. 

Storage: Recitals, most compilations, "singer portraits", other labels (unless something caught my eye), most records in the "none of the above" category. This is the most "scary" bit, because luck and coincidence has made me stumble across some true gems that I want in the main collection way before others that made it there simply for being on a big label. I'll probably always wonder if I tossed away great records because I didn't listen to or research EVERYTHING!

I assume that giving labels this much importance is a bit weird, but I had to choose some arbitrary system to start with, and it worked out pretty well. 


I'll probably make changes - many of the upstairs records deserve a place downstairs - but that will be from listening. The shelves are full, exchanges will be on a merit system. 


Thanks for your input, everyone.


----------



## joen_cph

Somehow, there´s _always_ something difficult to categorize ...


----------



## Vinyl

joen_cph said:


> Somehow, there´s _always_ something difficult to categorize ...


Yup. Even after a good listen. Probability of making dumb mistakes from a quick glance on the cover of hundreds of LPs is pretty much 100%


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Vinyl said:


> There's upwards of 4,500 LPs, so that strategy won't work.


JACE's suggestion in Post #4 is the only suggestion that *will* work. It takes me almost two years to listen to everything on my shelves (I've just done it, so I know) so I'd estimate that it might take you five years to do it with your pile .... until then, you won't have a sensible final selection because you won't *know* what is worth keeping or not.

Of course, you could simply pick all the ones with nice pictures or on certain labels or select your 'top-picks' or 'pick one throw the next five away' or .....


----------



## Headphone Hermit

Merl said:


> Classical was ordered by composer surname and then I filed orchestral music first, alphabetically according to the type of piece. So a concerto came before a symphony and a piano concerto came before a violin concerto. After the orchestral it was chamber music, then solo instruments and lastly vocal music. *I used the old Penguin guides* as that seemed the most logical way for me.


Hey, me too! Glad to know someone else thought this was a good idea * but .....* what about those discs with two (or more) composers?

Sometimes it can be easy .... the Nimbus set of Bartok that has five and a half discs of Bartok and half a disc of Kodaly clearly goes in 'Bartok' but the disc with Beethoven Symphony No 1 and Mozart Symphony No 41 could go in either 'M' or 'B', but there are many decisions that make sense only to me (but then, life is like that rather a lot :lol: )


----------



## Vinyl

Headphone Hermit said:


> JACE's suggestion in Post #4 is the only suggestion that *will* work.


On the face of it, yes. But I can't have them all sitting in boxes or anywhere in the house until I listen to them all, so I have to make uninformed choices, some of which will be bad. Some are good, too, as my random picks today have revealed.


----------



## joen_cph

Having heard 4500 different LPs, when you reach no. 4500, you´ll most likely have a very different view of no.1, or no.11, than when you begun. 

Say for example that no.1 is a Schoenberg recital you´ve never heard, and that in the meantime you´ve heard 5 more LPs with Schoenberg - you´ll have a different view of him. 

The same might apply to performers - if it was Mozart´s 40th symphony and you liked the music, you have maybe later heard interpretations that you´d prefer now.


----------



## Vinyl

That's true enough, but you should also keep in mind that this collection was made over almost three decades, ending in the mid-to-late 80s, when the PO turned to CDs. 
I own and/or know many of the works in the collection in different, newer, often (but far from always) better versions. There are whole, huge trends in playing and recording music that has come (and sometimes gone) since the last LP in this collection was bought. In fact, many of today's better and more prolific artists weren't even born when Mr. Løwe stopped buying vinyl. 

I just don't want to accidentally and unknowingly place a truly magnificent record in the rubbish pile, and that is the activity I'm in the middle of. I can't keep it all, and I can't listen to it all before deciding which ones to keep.


----------



## Ingélou

I can't advise as you have such a vast collection & some good suggestions have already been made. What I would say is that if you do get the time to start listening, *please* will you write a blog on your progress? 
Or if you haven't time, start threads on sets of records & your reactions to them, inviting the responses of others. 
It would be really interesting, just as this thread is.


----------



## joen_cph

I agree, since you have a well-founded perspective already, you´ll probably find items not worth keeping. 

There is of course a lot of pretty terrible stuff on LPs too - for example, a good deal of the recordings and performances on the Concert Hall label with coloured covers are poor, or those of the Remington label. But then, I personally found the cover designs worth collecting a few of. And there are fine/interesting performances to be found too.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese

I think the best solution is to offer most of the records to a deserving connoisseur (me) and the rest to other TC members................


----------



## Vinyl

Ingélou said:


> ... if you do get the time to start listening, *please* will you write a blog on your progress?


Hehe, I started one but quickly realised it takes too much time. 
I should, for my own sake as well, but I can't see myself doing it. 
Maybe if I can think of a quick and easy way to take some notes and invite comments... 
I'll certainly consider it.


----------



## Vinyl

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I think the best solution is to offer most of the records to a deserving connoisseur (me) and the rest to other TC members................


TC members are hereby invited to come and take their pick. 
I am not making a list of what's in all those boxes, and the thought of packing and shipping it all in little batches... Nope. Not happening.

But feel free to drop by and take with you as many as you want. I'll make coffee.


----------



## CDs

I agree with what you said about not wanting to unknowingly throw away a gem but listening to all 4,500 would take years. Do you have any relatives/friends that know classical music that could help you?
But like you just mentioned maybe the TC community could come to your rescue.


----------



## Merl

Headphone Hermit said:


> Hey, me too! Glad to know someone else thought this was a good idea * but .....* what about those discs with two (or more) composers?
> 
> Sometimes it can be easy .... the Nimbus set of Bartok that has five and a half discs of Bartok and half a disc of Kodaly clearly goes in 'Bartok' but the disc with Beethoven Symphony No 1 and Mozart Symphony No 41 could go in either 'M' or 'B', but there are many decisions that make sense only to me (but then, life is like that rather a lot :lol: )


With split discs I listen to them and decide which piece I like the best. I just have to remember what disc the other piece is on if I want to play it. I've discovered some things I never knew I had, this way. If both pieces are equally good I put them under the most uncluttered composer's name (if I had a Beethoven split disc it would go under the other composer cause I have rather a lot of Ludwig's stuff).


----------



## Vinyl

I just moved this one from B to M today, for no scientific reason at all.


----------



## joen_cph

Vinyl said:


> I just moved this one from B to M today, for no scientific reason at all.
> 
> View attachment 89270


I haven´t heard that, but would think that it is probably good?
The removal seems Ok to me, there´s only one Mendelssohn Octet, a major work of his, whereas the Boccherini quintets (very nice) constitute a big corpus of works.


----------



## joen_cph

I´m going to say something that is perhaps a bit controversial: but if one has a good deal of listening experience, one can actually often judge the value/lack of value of a recording, by listening to just a few excerpts - not just the sound quality, but also the performance.


----------



## Vinyl

joen_cph said:


> I´m going to say something that is perhaps a bit controversial: but if one has a good deal of listening experience, one can actually often judge the value/lack of value of a recording, by listening to just a few excerpts - not just the sound quality, but also the performance.


I agree very much with that, but I have an additional piece of information about this collection: There are almost no duplicates, in the sense of more than one recording of any given piece. 
There are exceptions, of course. Bach Cantatas, for instance. Five different Das Lied von der Erde. (Yay!)
But the rule, then, is that there is one of each composition. So I have to dismiss not only the performance and technical aspects of it, but also whether or not I want this piece of music here *at all*. 
It's a lot of fun, actually, and a true privilege. As problems go, this is certainly one of my all time favourites.

I can tell you one thing: Haydn's Baryton Trios with Esterhazy on EMI HMV is staying. I might not ever have heard this if it hadn't been for this collection. This is fantastic. I recommend it for both music, instruments, musicianship, performance and the recording. Beautiful.


----------



## Stavrogin

My humble suggestion:

1) What you are looking for is a way to:
1.1) Know where to look when you want to pick an album 
1.2) Minimize your trips upstairs 

2) So, I would disregard labels and performers. What if the only version of a work you love is from a label that you sent upstairs?

3) You said you have 10 shelves downstairs, right? Divide the collection in max 10 groups as similarly numerous as possibleon in terms of population. That may be chronologically: <1770, 1771-1800, 1801-1815, and so on (just examples off the top of my head, of course).

4) Depending on the number N of groups, you'll have (more or less) X picks per group, so that N*X = the number of LPs that fits downstairs.

5) For each group, pick the X ones that are (more likely to be) your favourites, just by looking at composer and genre.

6) Sort them per group, in the order (inside each group) that you like best.


----------



## joen_cph

Having such a wide repertoire available is really a luxury then - I once estimated that the "generally well-known standard repertoire" is probably equal to say 1500 units or so.


----------



## Vinyl

Stavrogin said:


> My humble suggestion:
> 
> 1) What you are looking for is a way to:
> 1.1) Know where to look when you want to pick an album
> 1.2) Minimize your trips upstairs


Thank you for a well thought out, logically coherent idea! 
I have to remind you that there is a substantial number that goes to what I have chosen to call "storage". 
The mistakes I make between upstairs and downstairs are fixable, the ones involving storage not so much. There is a higher risk at stake than an extra trip upstairs. 
Other than that I like your suggestion, and might try it, perhaps in smaller scales, at some point. Thank you.


----------



## Vinyl

joen_cph said:


> Having such a wide repertoire available is really a luxury then


Oh yes. I know. Mindblowing, at times.


----------



## Stavrogin

Vinyl said:


> Thank you for a well thought out, logically coherent idea!
> I have to remind you that there is a substantial number that goes to what I have chosen to call "storage".
> The mistakes I make between upstairs and downstairs are fixable, the ones involving storage not so much. There is a higher risk at stake than an extra trip upstairs.
> Other than that I like your suggestion, and might try it, perhaps in smaller scales, at some point. Thank you.


You're welcome! 
I think that if you add "and minimize storage mistakes" to (1.2) the logic still works.

A couple of remarks:
- the lower N (the number of groups you set), the closer you get to the optimal minimization of "mistakes"
But
- the higher N, the easier in terms of time and effort for picking favourites


----------



## rcstaats

Vinyl said:


> How would you choose what stays and what goes?


Recommend that you view a rotation strategy rather than a permanent/museum approach. For the first six months, choose the 1/3 that you are most likely to listen to several times during that period, and then, swap out half of them twice a year.

After several years, the records you really want upstairs will be upstairs.


----------



## Pugg

rcstaats said:


> Recommend that you view a rotation strategy rather than a permanent/museum approach. For the first six months, choose the 1/3 that you are most likely to listen to several times during that period, and then, swap out half of them twice a year.
> 
> After several years, the records you really want upstairs will be upstairs.


This I don't get.......


----------



## rcstaats

Pugg said:


> This I don't get.......


The idea was *not* to try and pick some albums and leave them permanently displayed in a place of honor upstairs - he collected all those albums over the years for a reason. Better to resolve to rotate them upfront.

It feels like a big chunk of being happy with a decision is following through on it.

Does that help?


----------



## Vaneyes

I see culling as the first task--donate or sell the unwanted. 

You've already made a decision with Opera upstairs. 

Then, maybe make Orchestral another section, and Chamber and Solo another. 

Things might be simplified some, if you had a hifi system in each of the three record storage areas. 

For instance, Opera and Orchestral played back with floorstand speakers, and Chamber and Solo with bookshelf speakers. I've done this on occasion, and it's worked well. 
There are tougher problems/issues. Have fun. :tiphat:


----------



## Mal

At the top of each forum here you have stickies like "The TC 150 Most Recommended Symphonies". Why not use these as a first pass filter to determine what goes in the living room?


----------

