I have been downloading albums for the last few years & when I find that this is an album which is going to be part of my Vinyl collection which will be part of my system for a long time.. I can make sure that I love every track on the album & I will be happy with what I paid for the copy because in the past I have bought Albums/ CDs & then realised that I have made a big mistake after only hearing one or two tracks... but by downloading the albums first & liking the whole thing then this is where I would say to anyone go this way & enjoy your vinyl..

Please consider “Turn Up the Quiet” by Diana Krall. It is an album of jazz standards, performed beautifully. It is one of those regular pressings that sounds like an audiophile album. You can’t go wrong with Turn Up the Quiet.

Process : I don't buy reissues. If I want the record bad enough, I get the original. There wil always only be one original pressing. If I can't afford it, so be it, I focus on new music or new archival releases. I go and listen online everything I can, which means spending hours on many sites on a weekly basis, and then I start to put aside everything that catches my interest, and I revisit it until I can find no more doubt. I will absolutely ignore a new album from an artist I love, if I don't find it strong or challenging enough. Andyes, challenging oneself is the prime concern. Cheers

Hi Mike great video. I've come to the same state of mind as you. I've found myself to keep buying multiple copies of the same album over and over again. And with the price of vinyl getting way out of hand, it's become too much. In the past year I bought too many albums that I found out later were just not worth it. I'm also interested in the C,S & Nash coming this year. So what I'm going to do is hold back and listen to the reviews coming in. And unless I heard something like this copy is exceptional and better than any copy I've heard, I won't be pulling the trigger on it. I already have 4 copies of this, that sound great. I don't need another one that is just so so. I'm going to be very selective and picky this year. Maybe if we all cut back, they'll bring the prices down to a reasonable level again.

My motto is this. If I really want a record I stream it a few times. If I have a few copies of that record I keep the best sounding out of the bunch and sell the rest.

It’s not a Sonny Clark album, it’s a reinterpretation by a totally different group of guys, but I’m going to give it a listen.

do you use the Fielder method made popular in the Rehearsal series? i tend to go with Trident Strategy. The pattern is the pattern.

In the last few years, I only buy used records because in most cases they sound better than today's reissue releases. Sometimes I buy an audiophile jazz reissue, but I try to find the original release or an early analog reissue first.

Mike, the Acoustic Sounds Atlantic 75 series version of CS&N comes out in February along with David Crosby's If only I Could Remember My Name.... and finally the Matchbox 20. Like you I'm looking for ways to cut back on these expensive box sets. Currently I have the first two MoFi Joni Mitchell One Steps (Blue and Ladies of the Canyon) on pre-order and I'm considering canceling those orders, not because of the digital step involved (I don't care one whit about that!) but because I'm not so sure that those recordings are going to benefit that much from the One Step process. These are not audiophile quality recordings to begin with. In the case of Blue, on most songs it's just Joni singing with either a piano or an acoustic guitar accompaniment - that's it. Is the potential 5-10% improvement in sound quality worth the $125 investment? Besides, I already have a VG++ original copy of Blue, a VG++ first repress, a new recent repress on clear vinyl, another new repress in a 4 LP box set reissued last year, plus x2 very good versions on CD. I think I'm good. With some of the Van Halen One Steps, although I'm sure they are going to sound great, there's only a half hour of music on the albums. Is that worth spending an extra $125 dollars over what I already have? And how often am I going to play them? These are the decisions that have to be considered.

My method is, only buy albums that are 10s. I haven't got enough room for stuff I don't absolutely love. People seem to buy albums for fear of missing out or just to have them. I only bring stuff into my house that are top shelf grails now. For every mediocre record just remember that it could be a grail instead taking up that space. That's why I can't understand the $ people spend on Steeley fcking Dan albums 😂

I buy two three a month..I am willing to pay 35 if it is good..more than that is no go regardless of what it is.

You mentioned the price of vinyl and buying 150 dollar records but I think too many people in the audiophile community have a case of FOMO Uf you’re on a budget did you really need that AJA album when 30 dollar recordings sound wonderful!! Do we need all these expensive reissues when the copies we have sound very good?? The prices are getting ridiculous on these so I’d rather invest in a better system and not buy 150 -200 dollar reissues

Vinyl is not more expensive - most LP’s were $3.49 in 1961 = $34.76 2024 - you can’t compare audio file records that were not available in the past. The average record is today $30.00 so you statement in general is in correct.

Sorry to say but seems a bit odd trying to reduce cost on records but then spend thousands going to Audio shows all over the country/world.

With all due respect, don’t you think you and others like yourself who constantly fawn over the UHRQ and other high prices releases from Mo Fi and from AP in particular share some of the blame for the high prices. Maybe if these releases were not always praised as the next best thing because I find it hard to believe that every one of these $75 to $150 are the best things ever. Nobody bats a thousand percent.

Its records, not vinyl.

For $150 I can by enough groceries for at least two weeks. I can fill up the car with fuel twice. I can pay all my utility bills, etc. What is a vinyl record at $150 going to do for me? Can I eat it? Does it help with rent? Can I use it to for my car?......Would I enjoy listening to it? That is the question I will answer right here. The answer is "NO". What does one get for $120, $150 records? One gets a $10 record and the rest is packaging that is not even worth collecting. My process: The first thing I keep in mind is that there is no such thing as an "audiophile record". That is pure fantasy. What makes a record "audiophile"? A sticker perhaps and because someone says so. That's it. Did the original artist go back in the studio and re-record the album with today's equipment and some exclusive technique? Answer: No. Was the album remastered correctly? Answer: At least half the time, no. So that answers what makes an "audiophile record". I won't even purchase such records of my all time three top favorite artists. Next, it so happens that very little to none of the music I listen to has been or even will be reissued. More importantly is the way I look at and value records though. For me, vinyl records are not just something I grew up with, that is part of it of course, but they are also very sentimental and historical documents. They tells us a lot of not just memories perhaps, but what was going on in society at the time. I also much prefer original pressing for that reason and more anyway. I want to hear how the album was recorded at the time, in the day. I want to get that essence of the artist who was trying to portray it to me (even if the mix and mastering engineer had slightly different ideas from time to time). I want to hear all that regardless of any short comings due to the gear at the time or what have you. I buy records to listen to and enjoy, not because they are worth anything monetarily. In fact, in my opinion there is no monetary value in records. They are the worst investment vehicles. I have records in my collection that a market like Discogs claims to be $20, $30 and one I have is around $250. To me they are worth $1 to $5 and maybe $10 tops. I don't care. That is not where the value resides for me. I have records ranging from VG condition to mint condition media and VG- condition to near mint condition packaging. I'm always more interested in the media. I do not purchase digital except for CDs. I could care less about labels. I never purchase just because of a label. I will say, there are a couple I avoid though based on experience. I do similar to you for discovering new music. I watch videos from folks showing collections on KZfaq, reaction videos and Spotify. I don't use streaming for listening, but it is invaluable for research and discovery! I don't read magazines nor go into forums. To me they are worthless like social media. Only once have I found new music at a high end show. In fact, it was at a show in 2016. A room (I forget what they make was) was playing a group called London Grammar. I have never heard anything like it before (I was in radio and am a lifelong curator of music form a very early age it seems). I thought it very unique. Unfortunately, the vinyl record versions of their LPs are a bit too pricey for me, but I did manage to find two of their 3 LPs on CD for an earth based price. I use the following process to figure out whether or not I will like an album of an artist I am not familiar with: Take a listen on Spotify or wherever I can find said album. That said, there are times I take a complete chance and that is with box sets or double or single LPs of various artists or sets of a familiar artist that I really like. I have picked up some crazy finds in that category and I am a sucker for them. I am somewhat careful though, I avoid the common ones and labels such as K-Tel for example. Fortunately, it is not a very frequent occurrence either. This has also led me to discover labels that I thought would be horrifyingly bad only to learn how incredibly good they are. For example: I picked up a Readers Digest box set one time (those are massive by the way). It was $5 or so at the time and I was curious. I fully expected it to sound worse than a K-tel or just really awful. I was blown away by how good it sounded when I put it on! In fact, the Readers Digest sets I have are some of the very best sounding records I own! I then just had to do research about who and how they were pressed and such. Nearest I could find is that they were actually pressed by RCA plants (special edition plants). One could say they were the MoFis or Analog Productions of the time I guess. (That is based on rumor about those labels. I have never heard anything from either of them. Never had and never will have that opportunity). I don't buy into Vinyl always is the best sound quality or digital is best no matter what. I say they are different and it depends on the recording and mastering. That said, I have never heard a high-rez file or what have you sound different or better or worse from a CD. Some records do sound best on vinyl and some on CD. It depends on the music and mastering. For example, I find Jethro Tull to sound far better on vinyl then the CD counterparts. That said I recently picked up two Jethro Tull CDs that are remasters by Steve Wilson. I have not listened to them yet though. They might be really great or they might sound awful like the standard CDs. (FYI- I replaced my Tull standard CDs with ones I made from vinyl on my professional CD recorder. They are not quite as good as playing the vinyl direct, but fairly close and better than the standard issue CDs). On the other side of the same coin, I prefer the 90s remasters of Rush on CD over the vinyl and over later remasters. Then there are one offs like Tori Amos where the vinyl record versions sound spectacular and the CD versions sound the same! Tori used a particular recording technique that was genius and could easily be used by any other artist, but sadly is not used that much. I avoid buying any type of "electronic music" on vinyl such as Tangerine Dream and the like. I have done that and it sounds awful. It is far better on CD. Another reason I do not purchase modern re-issued vinyl records besides being unaffordable is the packaging itself. Some original pressing packaging was pretty special and is never duplicated in re-issues. Some examples: Three Dog Night - Seven Fools, Jethro Tull - Stand up and Thick As A Brick, Yes - Yessongs, Chicago - Live at Carnegie Hall, etc. Of course, none of those have been re-issued on the fancy pants labels to this day anyway. I have a couple or three Blue Note label issues and I don't like them. They don't sound good to me. They are noisy (and that is after proper cleaning) and shrill. Even if I absolutely love an album and it has been re-issued, I am not willing to spend $120+ or what have you on the reissue. I do not know that it will sound good and if it doesn't I'm stuck with it, there are no returns and selling it is not an option for me. The option I have and use it give it away. Doing that after spending $120+ though is the most foolish thing in the world and should be illegal. There is also the fact that I prefer the original pressing anyway so why even bother? Finally, there is really no excuse for the prices of vinyl today even with all the expense that goes into it. Some (not all) of the excuses are total BS as well and that just makes me angry.