Knowing if a record will sound good is tough these days. You can read discogs reviews but those are a crapshoot because 90% of them are people who are listening on $50 turntables with built in 2” speakers. They either complain about everything being shit while ignorant of their garbage equipment or paradoxically just think everything is 5 stars because “vinyl just sounds better”
That said the steve Hoffman forums music forums (stevehoffman.tv), gearspace.com, vinylengine.com, certain subreddits (forget which, don’t really go on Reddit anymore but r/vinyl is probably a good start) are at least places with more nuanced discussion where you can generally see the rationale for why someone thinks a pressing is good instead of just “omg it sounds so good 5 stars”. You often get great info on their signal chain as well. But they aren’t nearly as comprehensive so don’t expect to find everything
It’s crazy to me that it’s still going strong. I used to collect vinyl. I still collect used stuff sometimes but prices are nuts now even for used unless it’s in awful shape or something ancient/terrible/no one ever gave a shit about. I refuse to buy new. Back in like 2005 it was a good way to get a physical copy with decent audio quality (and often but not always a better mix versus cd/digital, especially in that era) for like $15-20. Now a single lp is $40 new and the pressing quality is often mediocre. I think nowadays most people just want something to hold onto or a jacket to hang on their wall or whatever, the idea of physical media is ancillary. Maybe they should bring back laserdiscs of movies, I bet they would sell