~ Michael Lee Firkins' first album (st) has excellent sound quality and absolutely stunning guitar playing. Sadly it went downhill after this due to (or so I've read) budget cuts. The self-titled album, though, is definitely one I would recomend as a "reference shred" album.
~ I feel that most Marty Friedman stuff is well recorded; for shred see Music for Speeding and True Obsessions.
~ Cacophony is pretty much the best band for tons of shred in my opinion, but their albums aren't especially well done. From memory I think their second album, Go Off!, was a good bit better than their first, Speed Metal Symphony as far as production goes; but for quality of guitar solos I lean slightly towards SMS (very slightly, Go Off! had some very good stuff).
~ Shawn Lane's "the Tri-Tone Fascination" is quite well recorded as well. But good luck getting that one. His previous album, Powers of Ten, wasn't so great in this aspect (that said he did record it at home, played all the instruments himself, and used a synth/midi keyboard for the drums; it's not a CD one should expect such quality from) but the music is wonderful. Some of the CDs he did with Jonas Hellborg were also done exceptionally well, but that's moving into the fusion genre and a bit away from the shred.
~ Paul Gilbert's Silence Followed by a Deafening Roar was quite high quality, and shoulden't be a problem at all to get a hold of (2008 release)
~ Takayoshi Ohmura - Emotions in Motion is very well done as well. Most of the songs are a bit more balanced between the rock/metal and the shred; but the solos are generally fantastic. What I really want is a full-length album similar to his Powers of Reality (see the song
Pleasent Surprise) with slightly higher recording/mixing quality. That will be the day...