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Shame to hear that the re-increasing demand for LPs currently causes such poor quality. I hope that as capacity re-expands and skills are re-increased, that may change for the better?
Good to hear they're doing analogue mastering, of course.
Oliver Schick-
Well this is kind of old news at the moment. Vinyl production has been lurching from one crisis to another for some years. Any time they try to speed up the process it results in faults. Lack of capacity meant the big factories were overstretched and the quality control in some of them was very poor, changed to be not so bad and then lapsed again due to changes brought about by the pandemic.
Analog mastering has been a fully confirmed part of the 'vinyl revolution' plenty of collectors insist on it and there are a few ways to go about it. Another approach is half speed mastering which is a largely digital cutting process. Abbey Road are consistently f**king that up on behalf of the British.
The few names in the world for mastering right now are all well known working out of well established studios. Kevin Gray came under a lot of scrutiny when people started hearing pitchy pianos in the Blue Note Tone Poet series.
The mastering on the 80th series is very good but they've let it all down with the pressing and handling of the records in the factory. So now the mastering barely matters because so many sides are damaged from the off. I suppose in percentage terms only a tiny part of the musical content is affected but it's really annoying!
Airhead
On the subject of pressings to avoid. I would suggest that anyone buying the new series of Blue Note 80yr classics makes sure they are not covered in scratches or featuring no-fill. I'm returning 3 of 4 that I received.
Universal only had one job to do and they screwed the pooch. They take the acknowledged best albums ever released on Blue Note have them all analog mastered by the hottest analog for vinyl mastering name in the business at the moment. Charge Speakers Corner prices and deliver shitty quality.
Worth avoiding anything from Universal on vinyl, they just don't care.