Lets hearit for 100% Virgin Vinyl, or other equivalents

[CPR]

Before CD's, Virgin Vinyl, was pretty cool
My 1st was Pink Floyd/The Wall
Given to me by a salesman from Lyric Hi-Fi in NYC
Slightly warped, but sounded great
Sold me a great system to go with it!

 

[jimfisheye]

Someone more on top of this could probably give a better more complete rundown but real quick, the best quality vinyl I've heard was:
First generation of MFSL pressings. (Not the 2nd or 3rd and especially not the reboot however!)
Classic Records (They had some impressive 45rpm pressings too.)
Those two were without exception that I'm aware of.
Then we get into stuff that might vary depending on the particular album. Deutsche Grammophon and whoever was doing some of those Japanese pressings comes to mind.

There are a few variables in play too. The mastering presentation needs to be just as on point as the vinyl quality. And both from the perspective of delivering the mix in the fullest quality and dealing with the vinyl format challenges while doing that. So those "best of show" mentions above really nailed all that from all directions.

"Before CD's"...
Was your impression of early CD's that they were often a downgrade? Mine was and I only had an average vinyl setup at the time (late '80s). The special pressings all sounded clearly better. Some CD's bettered the weaker ones though. After the vinyl rig upgrade it was more like 90% of vinyl sounds better than any CD version. I thought the early digital format was just limited and kind of garbage for a good long time. Now I'm aware that the mastering work is 97% to blame in those cases. (And nowadays most CD or mp3 versions are intentionally altered for lo-fi devices.)

I have that Columbia half speed master pressing of The Wall as well (if that's the one you meant). Not fair to compare it to the CD versions out there (and since they haven't released that album in HD digital yet either) but this vinyl is still the best sounding copy of this one you can find right now.

 

[Quadzilla]

Virgin vinyl was first used by JVC on CD-4 Quadradiscs because the format was inherently noisy, and the dirt and crud in recycled vinyl would add much more noise. They were also half-speed mastered in order to efficiently capture the ultrasonic subcarrier frequencies. In fact, JVC was the go-to pressing facility for later audiophile companies like MFSL. Audiophiles owe a lot to earlier quadraphonic technology, including advanced (fine-line, hyper-elliptical, micro-line, etc.) stylus shapes that were developed from the Shibata design.

 

[CPR]

Someone more on top of this could probably give a better more complete rundown but real quick, the best quality vinyl I've heard was:
First generation of MFSL pressings. (Not the 2nd or 3rd and especially not the reboot however!)
Classic Records (They had some impressive 45rpm pressings too.)
Those two were without exception that I'm aware of.
Then we get into stuff that might vary depending on the particular album. Deutsche Grammophon and whoever was doing some of those Japanese pressings comes to mind.

There are a few variables in play too. The mastering presentation needs to be just as on point as the vinyl quality. And both from the perspective of delivering the mix in the fullest quality and dealing with the vinyl format challenges while doing that. So those "best of show" mentions above really nailed all that from all directions.

"Before CD's"...
Was your impression of early CD's that they were often a downgrade? Mine was and I only had an average vinyl setup at the time (late '80s). The special pressings all sounded clearly better. Some CD's bettered the weaker ones though. After the vinyl rig upgrade it was more like 90% of vinyl sounds better than any CD version. I thought the early digital format was just limited and kind of garbage for a good long time. Now I'm aware that the mastering work is 97% to blame in those cases. (And nowadays most CD or mp3 versions are intentionally altered for lo-fi devices.)

I have that Columbia half speed master pressing of The Wall as well (if that's the one you meant). Not fair to compare it to the CD versions out there (and since they haven't released that album in HD digital yet either) but this vinyl is still the best sounding copy of this one you can find right now.

No; mine was the Japanese version of 100% Virgin Vinyl