but for Beethoven I find the century-plus of concert hall tradition perfectly valid, as with the London symphonies and the last three Mozart.

Since my classical collection is mostly vinyl (about a thousand discs vs. 350-400 CDs) scrounged from thrift stores (do you have thrift shops in Australia, or do you call them charity shops?) for a dollar each, I have mostly ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s recordings of most of the repertoire.

Since you like Motörhead Beethoven, check out the Toscanini. The NBC Symphony is what was available in 1957 but the CD age has uncovered many archival recordings (not that the NBC Symphony isn’t a live version). Szell is one of my favorite conductors but my copy of the cycle is missing the one disc (thank God it’s not automatic-sequenced). If a Beethoven set is missing the one disc, I’d rather it be the Eroica (the eighth only takes up one side so another ssymphony would be abridged). I never loved it and I played it out almost 20 years ago. Not unlistenably so though. Agreed about the versions.

I think that, even if you don’t know it, you prefer digital over analog. If that makes no sense read the Harnoncourt review.