What's The Best Sounding Prog. Album?

How about ELP's "Trilogy"?

For ELP I think it's hard to beat 1st issue vinyl pressings of ELP and Tarkus.

The best sounding Prog Album ever ?

What a hard question.

In the Sixtees : In the court of the crimson king | King Crimson

In the Seventees : The Darkside of the moon | Pink Floyd  

In the Ninetees : Metropolis Part 2 | Dream Theater

I don't think Selling England is the best sounding, although it is one of my faves.

For me there are two albums that sound fab, one old and one new.

The MFSL version of the YES Album is stupendous. And then the Alan Parsons engineered new Steven Wilson album sounds great too. Lots of others I could put forward but these two just have the edge for me.

SQ wise - how about Supertramp - Crime Of The Century (Speakers Corner version)

I could definitely agree with that one, superb sounding music.

Is this prog? If it is, then surely this is the best-sounding prog LP?

IMO Pink Floyd were more 'Prog' than Supertramp Kevin.

Sound quality doesn't get any better than this. Not heard the CD but original vinyl is superb, if you can get hold of a copy.

I'd go with the MFSL Yes Album too, for what I perceive as "sound quality". I prefer the recently released HiRes download a bit more, for reasons that many seem to hold against it. So I'll default to the MFSL, which is a superb effort that has not divided opinion.

I have a selling England remaster on CD which sounds bloody awful. What's your version Graeme?

Remaster of SE is indeed poor compared to Virgin Charisma (not Chrysalis as I mistakenly said above) CASCD 1074 which sounds very nice. I did a good bit of research around various forums before buying this version. G

Best sounding prog album.....an oxymoron for sure  (ducks for cover)....& Pink Floyd are not prog..

I had a customer come in yesterday who bought this in on vinyl, it sounded fantastic which has resulted in me buying the vinyl, 24 bit download and the blu ray for the 5.1 mix which is also supposed to sound amazing, that was an expensive demo 

ITCOTCK - Has to be first pressing! A2/B2. i Pink  Label. Anything else is just futile!

Would agree with Jack about Crime of the Century and with GraemeH about Selling England by the Pound.  My SEBTP is also a Virgin CD but CASDX 1074, a re-master, and is very good quality.

I'd also nominate King Crimson's Lizard. Another Virgin CD (EGCD4) of superb quality.

MDS 

Like prog or not, it's surely impossible to identify the best sounding album. Setting aside whether you like the music, It must depend on the production etc that you prefer. I cannot stand most prog, but do like King Crimson, particularly Starless and Bible Black, which always seemed to me to be well recorded as well as being good per se.  

a musical masterpiece..

Not surprisingly, The Alan Parsons Project sounds very good on standard issue vinyl.  On the other hand, I was disappointed with the flat/cold dynamics of an original issue copy of Yes Fragile I just bought - the original CD sounds much better.  However, the Yes 90125 album sounds great on vinyl; spatial, punchy, and dynamic, if not almost well-done digital.

A masterpiece of sound engineering.

Thanks Graeme. I will look into that at some point. I might even have the good version in a box somewhere - you know how that goes!

For me, Tales is very much of its time and has not aged well. But it is superbly recorded.

I have a copy of this on MFSL vinyl - it's a superb recording. In fact, all Alan Parsons Project vinyl albums are excellent, both music and quality-wise.

Most of the 1969-71 Vertigo LPs sound phenomenal on vinyl.

Particular favourites are the Nucleus LPs e.g. Elastic Rock and Solar Plexus (specially the latter). Cressida's 2nd LP is also a superb recording though about half the album is a bit iffy.

Does this count for more modern stuff?

Not the re-master.

My vote goes to this, a beauty to behold!

forgot to mention-1996 remastered with 4 bonus tracks version. CD.

Jason

This is also an excellent recording on Deram;