Matchbox 20 - Yourself or Someone Like You vinyl pressing

I don't remember. I was more paying attention to the squashed dynamics and top end missing. I can give it another listen but I doubt it will be tonight. And I don't trust my impressions that much, I usually like to make sure my wife and I concur before I get critical on a recording because her ears are so much better than mine. Let me get her involved again and I will try to remember to answer back.

 

its all good no need for you to keep listening to a poorly pressed record for my sake haha

 

Is it poorly pressed or poorly remastered? What you describe doesn't sound like a pressing defect.

 

well i would assume they use the same new masters for all of these vinyl pressings, regardless of where you get them. BUT that is an assumption.. maybe I am wrong. I don't think SRC presses these themselves. They had a delay in shipping to me because they were delayed in receiving the shipment to themselves. if other people are saying theres sound great then it has to be a pressing issue.

I've had one other new album I bought in the past that played back in a similar way. super crunchy and distorted. returned it to the store, was given another one and it sounded perfect.

 

I see someone else posted (I don't know who. Sorry) DR levels for the album, but used uncompressed WAV files. But looking at the DR levels, they're almost the same. Here's the link to that persons post. Album details - Dynamic Range Database

 

Just going to be the obvious one to throw this out there, but since you didn't mention it, did you try cleaning the album? I have a friend who had bought a Weezer album, which he described similarly to the way you said your copy of this album sounded. I asked him the same, and once he gave it a good run through a record cleaner and played it again, suddenly there was a night and day difference. You wouldn't think you should have to clean new viny, but sometimes...

It's either that, or you just got a bad copy. Could have just been a particular bad puck of vinyl that went into the press, or even a run of them that was inferior, depending on where in the run they occurred.

 

No I think it's rarewaves on eBay...

 

Hmm... This is one of my favorite albums. I may to jump in on this and check out the vinyl. Dynamic Range of 10 is pretty good, considering its digital.

 

Thanks for the suggestion but yes I did clean it. I have a VPI 16.5 and ran it through that with mobile fidelity cleaning fluid. So I did clean it. I think the thing to do is to send it back and just get a new copy.

 

In that case, I absolutely would.

 

I have had a cursory listen to this. I am definitely hearing an upgrade on the cd in certain areas. However, the bass can be a little ill defined at times. Earlier issues that @Paully was experiencing could be down to the fact that the bass is quite present on this cut and, depending on setup...i.e. whether your system leans towards bright or warm could be a decisive factor on whether the bass can overtake everything else. I personally like how this sounds....it's not perfect, but its probably better than I thought it would be. I like the fact that it leans towards the warm side....I do wonder if the high frequencies are slightly rolled off but I'm not having major issues and I am pretty happy with this.

 

Hmmm...having a proper listen now. Ive listened to the whole of the first side. Push sounds a little compressed more than the rest for some reason. Overall, I stand by my first impressions....but Push definitely gets a little squashed like @Paully said and is the worst sounding track. Id give this about a 7/10.

 

I went back and looked at my copy and you are correct. I totally missed it the first time.

 

I have found DR ratings of vinyl rips to be meaningless. They always seem to be a few points higher than the CD, even on digitally recorded albums.

 

Hi guys. I just received this too. Same very faint etching on side A but.... Is anyone else missing the '20' on the cover?!! Mine just says 'matchbox'! I'm wondering if there are dodgy copies floating around already. Any help here?

 

No it should have 20 on there. You might have a collectors item!

 

How is the quality of the labels and outer cover? Good printing? And how is the sound?

 

My red vinyl copy sounds just fine on my Linn LP12. Not very distorted as some mentioned but indeed with pronounced bass and overall a smooth sound. Not reference material but a very good listen altogether. Thanks to the great songs off course.

My deadwax says
Side A: 159922E1/B
Side B: 159922E2/B
So again different from some reports here earlier as far as side A goes.
And my album cover has the 20 as it's supposed to be.

 

Just got this today. Red vinyl version.

The single worst album I have and I have over a thousand.

This is an “autopilot” mastering by GZ. I am betting that nobody in the production chain even took even a second to see if the record actually sounded any good.

Probably cut from a digital file emailed by WEA to GZ who did their “virtual cut” to check that each side fitted but without any actual mastering.

Where’s the top end? And I am listening on an AT150MLX which is supposedly bright!

Rubbish. Avoid.

Get the CD instead.

 

I actually own an original copy of the 1998 vinyl pressing.

I'm very familiar with the CD and have played the original LP maybe 5 times ever. I've always thought the LP sounded good but never really did an A-B comparison until last night, when I did an A-B-C comparison of the original CD, LP and the recent LP reissue.

I must say that I agree with Paully regarding the squashed dynamics and missing top end of the 2017 reissue. I was flipping between that and the CD, and while the CD was clearly a lot louder, when I turned the volume down the top end just sounded so much better and detailed. When I would flip to the LP it really sounded like someone had thrown a towel over my speakers. I thought the CD had a nice clean sound and the vinyl sounded distorted in comparison.

Then I put on the original 1998 LP pressing. It didn't completely knock my socks off either. It wasn't as loud as the CD and the top end was there. It also sounded a little warmer than the CD but it didn't blow it away by any means.

If I had to rank them, I'd say Original LP, CD and then 2017 LP reissue.

 

I certainly don’t think the reissue is bad at all. It certainly doesn’t sound to me like a towel has been thrown over the speaker.

I’ve heard better, but certainly heard a lot worse. It may be system dependant?

 

Maybe @GeorgeZ can confirm how the audio was sourced for this reissue...

 

I got the 24/96 hdtracks, sounds good but still loud DR 7/8.

Looking for a good vinyl rip.

 

The recording method has very little to do with the eventual dynamic range. It is more about the mastering than the recording method.

 

Here is the answer for the previous question. Quite long sides 25 minutes and 22 minutes. Some people are satisfied with the sound, some not.... We have to cope with that.