Poll: Beatles 2012 Vinyl Remasters - Rate the Pressing Quality

Rate the pressing quality of the new 2012 Beatles stereo vinyl remasters. Are your copies flawless? Have you encountered the dreaded no-fill issue? Remember, this is about the pressing quality of the LPs, not the mastering quality.

 

what if i have both?

 

Rate the one you like best? Or least?

 

Some duds. Haven't gone through everything yet, but so far:

PPM / WTB / AHDN / Help! -- all good. Possibly a tiny bit of non-fill on PPM, but so light as to be negligible.

Revolver - very bad. (would consider this my worst LP so far) HTAE is unlistenable with a lot of non-fill, and a number of spots on Side 2 with non-fill.
BFS - Side 2 has a few areas of non-fill that are audible.
PM - some non-fill on LP1, but not LP2.
Abbey Road - Side 2 has a few spots of non-fill, like the EO HCTS.

TWA has a lot of stitching on LP1 but I haven't gotten around to listening to it, yet (I'm almost afraid to).

 

I bought individual LPs locally.
I bought Past masters, White Album, Sgt Pepper, Help!. Abbey Road, Rubber Soul, Revolver, Beatles for Sale, Magical Mystery Tour. All on sale paid $178 incl local tax.
All were fine.
Only minor issue with Rubber Soul a very small warp under 1mm. then Abbey Road warp of just under 3mm.
Neither worth taking back over.
The best improvement in sound was The White Album. Which really has PRAT and made me dance. (over my original #'ed US copy, or the later Brit pressing I also own, and way better than the remastered CD too.)

 

Generally excellent, a very few minor issues, but nothing severe at all.

 

My Canada box is pristine.

 

Only one of the seven single albums I purchased have any pressing flaws, I'm really pleased. I feel bad for everyone who is having bad luck with these though.
My next purchase is AR, and that seems to be the one that has the most trouble. I just am never able to pass up a clean copy of it ever, as its one of my favorite albums of all time. I hope my luck continues, but just in case it doesn't I'll open it in the shop and if I notice anything like what I've read here, I'll have it replaced.
Thank you SH forum!

 

What is non-fill?

 

I said "minor issues," not enough to detract, etc., but they'd be major if I weren't able to get a replacement. My "Abbey Road" (from the box) was really roughed up and if I were stuck with it would have made for a major bummer. But a second box arrived with a clean copy and so the rough places have been made plain.

 

Same with my Revolver. Could it be that certain specific titles are just having bad first runs? Revolver, Abbey Road, White Album.

 

I have the U.S. box set, but also purchased a few albums individually as Christmas gifts for my 14 year old son.
I have not listened to each album in its entirety yet, but have spot-played, looked for warps, etc. These are my initial findings.

Box
Good: PPM, WTB, AHDN, BFS, Help!, RS, YS, LIB and AR all flat. There are minor non-fill issues for many, but so far nothing really terrible.
Minor issues: SPLHCB (slight warp), MMT (slight warp). Both playable.
Bad: TWA (both discs seriously warped and unplayable), PM (Disc 1 badly warped and unplayable, Disc 2 slightly warped), Revolver (serious non-fill)

I didn't plan on opening the few individual copies since they are gifts, but decided to based on all the pressing issues.
Individuals
Good: RS, TWA
Bad: SPLHCB (slight warp and serious non-fill. First track Side 1 was unlistenable), Revolver (warped and serious non-fill, as above)
(I have since replaced the SPLHCB and the replacement had no issues after spot checking)

Based on what I have read on the Beatles remaster thread, I am fortunate to have a decent (so far) copy of Abbey Road, which appears to be have the most pressing complaints thus far. As noted above I have two badly pressed copies of Revolver, and hopefully I can get those replaced soon. Fremer states it may have the best sonics in the set.

Other notes: many of my copies have scuff marks, very noisy dead wax, off-center labels (causing lateral movement of the cartridge and pitch issues=bad), and small black marks next to the spindle hole. A few of the labels have cracks in the paper next to the hole. My copy of RS has uneven thickness, but so far that doesn't seem to affect the quality of playback. My copy of Revolver (from the box set) even had a finger print! Most of the records are not entirely black...many have areas that appear lighter or almost gray in color. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to affect playback.

I was looking forward to the mono vinyl box set release next year, but I will not pre-order based on what appears to be widespread pressing issues on the stereo set. Perhaps I will go for the UK release. I buy a lot of new vinyl, and without question these are among the worst pressed records I have seen from a major label. It boggles the mind that the folks heading this project didn't give a major Beatles release the attention it deserves. No pride in their product. I will forever avoid vinyl pressed at the Rainbo plant!

 

I received Abbey Road today and the album looked great visually under my halogen lamp, placed it on the turntable to see it spinning, looked nice and flat. Put on side one and it didn't sound right, it sounded like my needle was extremely dirty. The music sounded muffled and garbled. I soldiered on through the next few songs and stopped playing it for fear of damaging my stylus. I cleaned my stylus and played side two, it was better until I hit "Sun King" where the garbled sound returned. I decided to give the record a good cleaning in hope it would help but to no avail.

I have played the entire Past Masters and haven't experienced any problems, both pressings look clean and flat. I'm very happy with this one. I have Revolver, WA, SP and MMT on the way from the same vendor so will wait until I hear them before returning Abbey Road. I'm not sure if I should even attempt to get another copy of AR with all the problems I'm reading about this record particularly.

 

Quality control seems to be a thing of the past.
I would have certainly expected the Beatles catalog to get some respect.
Glad I kept my MFSL vinyl from years back........

 

Just picked up my box today and all LPs were perfect (from US); no warping, no marks, perfect labels...after reading many of the comments in threads 8 and 9, I was pleasantly surprised at the high quality pressings i recieved...also the book is very nice; much better than expected...

 

They may look like high quality pressings, but how do they sound?

 

The QC on my USA Abbey Road pressing sucked to the toppermost.

 

EU box pressings are excellent. no issues

 

I've gone through 2 Sgt Peppers. The first had so much distortion it was unlistenable. McCartney sounded like he was singing through a kazoo. The second was much better but had a very grungy groove noise. I found I had to really turn up the volume to enjoy the record but unfortunately it magnified the noisy vinyl.
My Abbey Road wasn't as noisy but certainly didn't knock me out with great sound. I found the 2009 CD had much greater detail and better channel separation. My copy of Magical Mystery Tour is the best of the lot but still has noisy vinyl.
All in all I won't be buying any more of this vinyl.

 

Show and tell about your problems here: http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/rainbos-pressing-portfolio-of-beatles-vinyl.302075/

 

EU Pepper: distortion on McCartney's voice for the first verse of track 1 side 1 / slightly warped / brief crunching sound on Kite.

EU With the Beatles: slightly warped

 

Sent my original box back and refused the replacement box. I'll just get the refund and maybe try again later (hopefully the quality will go up and the price will go down).

2 Lp's very warped. 2 LP's mildly warped. 9 LP's with one side slightly off-center while the opposite side was centered. Sgt. Pepper was distorted and unlistenable on side 1 and a little better on side 2. The rest of the LP's seemed Ok. Some pressings were a little noisy (Pepper was distorted), some were quiet. I never even opened the book. What music I did hear, did in fact, sound pretty good. Just the pressings were bad.

Not good enough for $350.

 

This was me but of course I only bought two titles.

 

I've had two very bad Abbey Roads so far. Worst new records I have ever heard in my life.

 

The vinyl does not fill the groove - you hear a grinding-ripping sound. Often it's only in the left channel, often on the outer 2 inches of the record, often when the music suddenly goes up in volume (like on a drum hit, hard edge of a guitar chord, cymbal strike, singer makes an "s" noise).

This video shows a sample of the noise:



A similar problem is stitching, where noise and marks are created on the outer portion of the record when it fails to release smoothly from the stamper/machine.