What are the better classical music CD makers?

mastering is only part of the sound quality equation. Engineering is even more important. In my experience the best quality in modern recordings comes from independent labels such as Bis, Nonesuch, Naive, Harmonia Mundi, Linn, plus a host of "boutique" labels such as Alia Vox, Alpha, Astree, Onyx. And then there are some wonderfully sounding older recordings from EMI, RCA Living Stereo, Arkiv, Erato...

and, I forgot to add, Denon and Naxos are not bad at all!

In addition to those calaf listed (all solid selections) I'd also add Hyperion to the list as they seem really consistent.

Also try out Reference Recordings. Great recording and mastering quality.

...I've always thought Decca/London and Deutsche Grammophon.

In terms of the original vinyl pressings...yes! However, the reissues, especially with Decca/London are rather bad. Decca used a very unique curve when recording and almost all of the reissues fail to take this recording curve into account and the result is less than stellar. DG reissues are now prone to bad EQ, compression and noise reduction. Your best bet with regard to Decca/London are the original vinyl pressings or you can send them to me.

Almost every label has good and bad sounding discs. Thankfully, most of the are good. You'd do a lot better to select by the quality of the performance though. No matter how well recorded, a bad performance is unlistenable.

 

Lord. Seems like another trip to the used vinyl store and firing up my LAB-500 TT again.

My local music store (not HMV) has quite a large selection of classical, but mostly, if not all, are either Decca/London or DG. The biggest thing is that they don't have any classical on vinyl, but they have Katy Perry on vinyl. So facebrick right there.

The only classical vinyl I have is some Columbia/Westinghouse stuff.

Thanks for the info.

Most classical on vinyl has very little monetary value. If you let it be known that you are interested in it, you'll find that people just give it to you... Until you can't store any more. (speaking from experience).

You that the bitrate of your flac is more correlated to the global volume of your album than SQ, right. If you encode a pop album that succumbed to the loudness wars, the bitrate will probably around 9xx or even 1xxx kbps. Personally, I'd look at the conductors and the orchestras before the labels.
 

- Telarc

- Archiv 

- Harmonia Mundi

- Hyperion

 

Those brands have never dissapointed me. Especially Telarc recordings manage to always amaze me.

 

- Erato

- Virgin

- Sony

- Decca

 

Most of the time excellent quality. Very few sour apples.

 

Deutche Grammophon recordings are variable quality, but their sister brand Archiv is always top notch.

 

Pentatone SACDs are my number one choice for overall excellence of sound. For redbook, Hyperion or Harmonia Mundi.

I hesitated whether to add Telarc to my list or not because they obviously care a lot about their engineering. The fact with Telarc is that their CDs sound hot, vibrant, but after 5' I always feel the urge to turn down the volume, or change CD. I guess I prefer a less exciting sound when I am actually listening to the music...