Vinyl Junkies …

It is really quite incomprehensible that they should incur issues like poor handling at a factory. Surely if anything's avoidable, that is?

Massive backlogs for getting dance music singles pressed, labels being told they will be delivered in March 2022

SPAM. My ongoing vinyl sale: https://www.lfgss.com/conversations/362966/#comment16003365

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Yes, that's the problem, it should be easy to get right. I'm sure my frustration is evident because this series could have been huge, these are all the titles anyone needs from Blue Note with the right mastering engineer at the right time and someone or something is scratching 3 out of 4 records by my count, how this doesn't show up on the radar is beyond me.

Universal is just a collection of individuals who as a whole don't seem to be able to organise a piss up in a brewery. They control one of the biggest legacies of music in the world and under their auspices many master tapes have been lost forever, check out 2008 universal tape fire.

In the past big labels were dealing with huge factories producing enormous amounts of records, unions controlled the factories and the factories took pride in producing a quality product in the time it took to do it. If you had a hit on your hands you could spread the pressing around, people worked a little overtime and LZII paid for a jumbo jet. Now there are only a few plants big enough to handle a release like this and they are all running at full capacity or a bit beyond.

These days tours make money, people stream hits a billion times. The industry wants to make money to fuel their coke habits but no one is checking the output of a quaint and only mildly profitable medium.

In the Third Man factory owned by Jack Black they give a toss what they make. QRP care, they understand mistakes can happen but they answer emails and put it right. Universal don't even publish an email contact. Everything's just WOW look at our shiny records, give us your money, ha ha you mugs. I'm not ordering from them any more because after a while you've only got yourself to blame.

As Einstein is credited with saying "The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result".

On the factory side of things, have a look at some of the footage from GZ Media in the bad old days, they treat the records so badly you would be surprised if one made it out of the factory without a fault.

My advice to anybody buying vinyl pressed at the moment is make sure you can return it if it's faulty. I have a bunch of great vinyl just arrived but the dud percentage has been and continues to be high.

Or just buy some from Hobo instead, although he will regret going all digital :)

On the subject of bad pressings I just got my 180g version of Promises - Floating Points.

Unlistenable. Loads of surface noise and constant pops & cracks.

Sorry to hear that. Yet another hot release that's getting quick represses and little to no quality control.

This part of the reason I'm getting tired of vinyl. Prices too high with inconsistent quality. I have pretty mainstream tastes so most of the vinyl comes from mediocre factories and I've repeatedly been disappointed with what I'm hearing through my speakers. My digital copies simply sound better.

It's a lottery for the most part. I've been ordering 30 records a month for the last few years. I'll be writing down the details for a release and based on label/price I'll already know I shouldn't be bothering. Gradually I've narrowed it down to the point where I get fewer than 20% with problems, half of those are acceptable and some get returned.

In fairness that still leaves some brilliant vinyl. It also encourages me to listen to new music and I get sent pre-release details daily which forces me to find new music.

I'd say my setup is pretty balanced between digital and vinyl in sound quality terms but I listen to recordings of my vinyl on the digital side of things so they are essentially the same thing most of the time. Streaming and CD's I enjoy a little bit less than vinyl, just personal preference. I can understand different people/different systems come to a different conclusion.

I'm also selling all the time instead of one big fire sale. That helps to keep me busy.

I agree with the lottery comment, even though I buy only a tiny fraction of the volume of vinyl mentioned above.

I've received scratched records from Music Masters Blue Note sent from US at the best part of £100 a time when you factor in postage. I guess they would have replaced but I cba to mess about sending stuff back to 'murica.

I've had decent sounding standard Blue Note releases from US Amazon which worked out about £15 delivered. Also had warped vinyl from Amazon.

Discogs s/h has probably proved the best vfm on balance.

the problem is when it's good it's so good, right? @Airhead
recent highlights;

Neil young -way down in the rust bucket
MBV - isn't anything.

Hobo s/h has probably proved the best vfm on balance.

ftfy

I better click his link, in that case.

And I'd better stop advertising for him, or I'll get gazumped on the best stuff...

Apart from physical quality issues (cracks & pops, scratches, warped vinyl) there's also the loudness disease affecting the quality of the vinyl experience.

A friend of mine showed me this site where you can check how much the levels have been messed with when recording:

https://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list?artist=kyuss&album=

Yes, that's what keeps me coming back.

Mastering quality has to be something to take into consideration. I think it's where the popular big label stuff can fall down making it sound worse than digital. There are a few albums where I've felt the vinyl was a bit of a step back from the digital version. I do buy CD's of releases I think sound fine streaming. Also albums that are quiet or have a lot of quiet passages are going to need to be stellar pressings.

Recent pickup

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Great tune, I've got a copy of that.

I also received my copy of "Promises" this week. After one (very quiet) listening session while WFH, I'm not won over yet.

I had similar issues as mentioned in details by @Airhead with Blue Note 75 copy of Hank Morley's Soul Station, IIRC. The record came to me with scratches all over despite being pretty new, and was jumping on the run-in to side B. The response I got from the seller on eBay was quite interesting - deploring the degrading mfg quality, and lack of QC, at the pressing plants basically.

Also this week-end sees another vinyl market just off the Triangle in CP (Hayes Lane), both days 11-5. Next one won't be till July. Happy digging.

I backed the 3 of the 4 copies I had, my distro apologised but they didn't want to reorder. 'Sounds like there are a lot of problems with the series' is what they said although that might have been in response to my comments.

I don't understand how a seller can just say 'mint, sealed, not my problem'. I made it very clear I couldn't sell what I had. I would have ordered multiple copies if they had been decent quality. I can accept a few small flaws but 3 out of 4 badly scratched or with no fill is way too high.

Probably best to go to a shop and buy an open copy you can check. Do look very carefully for no fill though, ideally you need a bright torch so you'll look like a total geek :)

I feel it's down to big sellers and distributors to take it up with the label and return all the poor quality pressings. Then they might up their game.

Picked up a Japanese re-issue of Hubbard / Turrentine in Concert. It was £20 inc postage from Japan. Arrived in about 4 days, immaculately packaged. King press. Vinyl plays like brand new and sounds pretty decent to me.

Happy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freddie_Hubbard/Stanley_Turrentine_in_Concert_Volume_One

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Picked up some solid 7's for £2 a pop!

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Final got around to upgrading the storage situation over the last two weekends.

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Nice turntable

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