Audiophile Record Collector's Handbook

This is a useful volume, though I bought it for different reasons. I thought it would lead me to audiophile LPs, which would be great, but all it does is decide that certain labels were audiophile and provide complete lists of all the records produced on each of them. So it's not discriminating in the way I'd have liked. I'm sure most English Deccas were wonderful, but surely not all of them. But Rees has done his work well. Each label he's chosen gets a full listing and there are several helpful pointers as to which reissues and international versions are worth going after. He misses a few points, I fear. Decca Eclipse mangled a lot of fine mono issues previously heard on Ace of Clubs, and some early LP reissues of Mercury had the treble chopped off in a most horrible way. However, if you collect these labels, this is very helpful. Don't look for Columbia, DG, or any number of other labels that, in the author's opinion, don't measure up to the great days of RCA, Mercury, Decca, and EMI (odd that Philips' magnificent orchestral recordings don't get in, but each to his own, I suppose).