I’ve been buying vinyl records since childhood. I still own the first record I ever bought as a kid, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band Stranger in Town. I haven’t played it in a while, but as I recall, it’s quite a good sounding record.

For most of my life I would get turned on to a record and if the thought of owning a copy of that record stayed with me long enough, I would go out and buy one. I wasn’t really paying any attention to the version I was buying. Typically I’d end up buying a new copy of whatever the latest issue or reissue was out there in print.

Several years ago I made a long overdue speaker upgrade, and once I did, all of my records sounded different. I hadn’t realized before how much the drums on my records weren’t really sounding like drums and the guitar wasn’t really sounding like guitar. Now I was hearing the music in a way I hadn’t heard it before. It was like I had a completely new record collection!

This experience changed fundamentally which records I buy and which I don’t. Before I would live with the sound quality of whatever copy I happened to pick up, good, bad or otherwise. Now I wanted records that would elevate the music and the experience of listening to it. Now I wasn’t just looking for any copy, I was looking for a particular copy.

From then on I wasn’t just a guy who bought vinyl. Now I was a bona fide record collector. But unlike most other record collectors, I wasn’t tracking down various pressings of a record just to add them to my collection. I wasn’t interested in building a record museum with thousands upon thousands of records that spent most of their existence sitting there and never being played. What I wanted was the pressing of a record that would sound the best, or at least have the potential to sound the best. And If I was fortunate enough to find such a copy, I only needed that one. I didn’t need a dozen.

I wanted records that had drums that sounded like drums and bass that sounded like base and electric guitars that relayed the “tubey” sound of the amplifier. I wanted records that were recorded and mastered properly. I wanted records that were pressed in a way that let me “see into” the recordings. I wanted records that would thrill me when I played them.

Much research ensued, some leading to small successes in finding good sounding records. Most of it offering precious little in the way of useful help. Fortunately I soon discovered Tom Port and Better Records, and with Tom’s help I’ve learned to find great sound for just about every record I buy.

Learning to do this has taken years and required a complete rebuild of my system. It hasn’t been easy. Even now, finding a single great sounding copy of a particular title can sometimes take me months. Why months you might ask? Because most of the records I put into my collection have been through at least one record shootout, and putting together and conducting a shootout can take time, even if it’s just with 2 copies.

Just in case you’re not already familiar with shootouts, they involve playing different copies of the same record and making comparisons that lead to one copy, or as is often the case, one side of a copy, standing out for its sound quality relative to the others. Shootouts are challenging to conduct but IMO, one of the best ways to train your ears and learn the sound you’re looking for. Shootouts are also the only way to find the very best sound for a given title. Shootouts and dumb luck, that is.

So if you’re ready to make the move from someone who buys vinyl, or even someone who collects vinyl the conventional way to someone who collects for sound, you’ve come to the right place! At your fingertips here are a great many articles and videos on the topic that include everything from record and equipment reviews to turntable set up guidance to documented shootouts with accompanying commentary.

So start clicking on some of the links above and dive into a whole new world of analog audio. And if you ever have questions, feel free to leave it in the comments and I’ll be happy to respond.