Why do classical fans seem to hate vinyl so much?

Yes, my copy was new. (And I paid $45! Should have just waited for the upcoming repress... another frustration point for classical vinyl.)

I didn't think much of the distortion though, I wasn't going to try to fiddle with my alignment to get rid of it when most of my records play fine.

 

I wonder if your distortion was as bad as mine, might do a needle drop of mine as it was extremely blasty and obvious, either that or I'm really picky it could easily be the latter! Pretty sure it was both sides, not about to wake my wife up playin it but I have the record here and running a finger over it those grooves really stick out, little wonder it distorts when packed that tightly together with those huge dynamic swings but it does make you wonder why it couldn't have been better and the grooves more spaced out, it isn't a £40 quality record quite frankly!
It's even more annoying that this is DG who's vinyl quality was always excellent, some DG discs are some of the quietest records I own! Sorry for the rant lol
I genuinely think classical record collectors, or should I say people who want the major works on vinyl, are much better off taking their chances buying collections (they're still relatively cheap here in the UK) and cheap records. I could easily get 10 records for the price of one of these reissues off Discogs or Ebay in mint condition, and if only half of them sound good I've still got 5 records!
Perhaps, though, this is a different kettle in the US where, as a poster eluded to above, all that can be had cheaply are awful Angel pressings, and I'll have cds over those every day of the week I had some that were new and sealed and sounded like rice crispies strait out of the rapping!

 

I love it! Well recorded all-analog LPs, say from Philips in the 60s-70s, sound much more like real instruments to my ears than do most CDs. My only gripe is having to flip sides or change LPs in order to listen to a lengthy piece.