Quality Record Pressings - Excessive Dishing and Warping

As the OP, I have to agree. QRP has been much more consistent in the past year or so (at least in my experience). I still wish that they would jettison 200-gram pressings, though.

 

Or maybe Someone Got Out Of Bed On The Wrong Side This Morning And Can't Understand A Few Genuine Criticisms Of Faulty LP Pressings That Happen To Come From 2014 Which Is Quite Recent By Most Standards

 

I'm not sure but the clear plastic inners are definitely RTI. My copies are not limted editions or numbered and they all have the very thick plastic liners and "psychedelic record labels".

 

I had some warped vinyl from them around the time this thread was started, but since then have bought at least 30 or more qrp pressings that have been perfect.

 

I was actually quite cheerful typing my satirical title correction — having listened to the perfection that is the QRP Masterpieces By Ellington last night.

 

No - Sterling do mastering/cutting of lacquers. QRP are a pressing plant (plating and pressing).

 

Both Axis Bold as Love colored vinyl from Newbury came in dished. Those were pressed by QRP. Sad to see.
Another AP pressing, Shelby Lynne came in dished a while back.

At least the stores are replacing them for me at no cost but dang. That's a high percentage. I think it's the 200g thing.

Then again, Masterpieces by Duke came in perfect. I dunno!

 

OK, here's the deal.
Sony say that both the black vinyl AYE from 2010 and the Newbury Purple Vinyl [both STERLING stamped] are from the same pressing plant but ..................
I have both, they sound different.
Black is RTI of which I was certain of in the first instance and Purple is QRP as per the inner sleeve.

As to OP, My Orange Newbury vinyl has the slightest warp but nothing that the clamp can't deal with.

 

Nearly all the new vinyl I've purchased in the past 12-18 months has been dished. That includes albums from QRP, Speakers Corner, MFSL and everything Optimal has pressed. That is a dreadfully poor batting average considering how many titles I'm talking about (80-100) but I think you're right that the problem now is the quantity of new vinyl being pressed at 180-200g weight. These plants can't keep up with the demand and QC is a thing of the past. I wish they would go back to 140g pressings. There is no SQ argument for 180g pressings whatsoever. It's all about the illusion of quality. Cheap flimsy LP's don't give you that. However, in the past week I've been digging out some of my older Lp's I purchased new in the 80's and I was positively surprised to see that every LP is perfectly flat both sides! Thin as rice paper, maybe, but flat! My tone-arm hasn't been quite as still in the vertical axis since.......oh, I can't remember. I kept thinking to myself I wish they could still do this today.

 

You must have a problem with transportation where you live for some reason. My experience with products from the same plants is quite different. Dishing has been the most infrequent fault but plenty other pressing issues usually solved by a second copy. I have probably had 2 or 3 dished Optimal pressings since they became one of the main sources of vinyl for the majors (5 years). Had one slightly dished QRP and non that I can remember from Speakers Corner or MFSL.

 

No, sorry, "dishing" doesn't happen in transportation, it's a by-product of uneven cooling of the vinyl. The problem appears to be quite common with heavy (modern) pressings. I've had mutilple copies of The Beatles In Mono and not one of them have provided a perfectly flat set of records with The White Album being the worst. The Nick Drake Lp's from Optimal were also dished.

 

That is usually the case but they must dish after leaving the press. It's possible heat in transport could set off the process if stresses in the vinyl. It is usually when they use 200 grm the problem becomes commonplace so I think you are very unlucky or something else is going on. I had one warped/dished disc in The Beatles Mono box plus one scratched disc which I replaced. Scratches appear to be the most common problem from Optimal of late.

 

I just received several albums pressed at QRP and 5 out of the 6 discs were very dished. This includes both brand new and a couple of older pressings:

Beach Boys, Surfin' USA
Beach Boys, Shut Down Vol 2
Cat Stevens, Tea for the Tillerman -- disc 1 is badly dished and has an edge warp that makes a thumping sound, plus side 2 is off center; disc 2 is good.
Sonny Rollins, Tenor Madness
Jackie McLean, 4, 5 and 6

Maybe they don't consider it a defect, and therefore not worth solving. I must say that I've gotten a lot of dished records from RTI of late, and I rarely got any in the past. The very worst was the MoFi Blood on the Tracks -- it took 4 copies to get one that wasn't heavily dished/noisy/scratched.

 

I know it's precious little consolation to you to know you're not alone here but it is some consolation to me, especially when your batting averages are getting almost as poor as mine and some members here believe I have been exaggerating the facts. I also have the MOFI Blood On The Tracks and my copy is also bowl shape. I am giving up on vinyl if I possibly can due to this issue being the norm for me now and flat perfect pressings being the exception. I'm glad I didn't waste my time trying to get a flat copy. My copy is very quiet and my tone-arm does not bob up and down so I accept it begrudgingly as a non-faulty modern LP by the standards of most new LP's, even though my instincts tell me it is faulty and this is not really good enough.

 

I just bought Jimi's Experienced and it's warped. Pressed by "Quality". A replacement is on the way but i bet it will be just as bad or worse. Also the fact most of Jimi's stuff is QRP or Quality I am hesitant to buy them now.
I have plenty of 180 and 200gm records that are flat. How hard can this be for a company that strives on being Quality.

 

I completely sympathize. I have cut way back on buying new vinyl as well. Even at it best a couple of years ago I was getting a 30% defect rate. Now it's more like 70-80%. I'm keeping most of the copies listed above because they are quiet and I don't have any hopes that replacements would be flatter. I will have to return the Sonny Rollins and the Cat Stevens 45 rpm -- the Sonny Rollins is not just extremely dished, it's very noisy. The thumping warp on the Cat Stevens doesn't cut it for a $60 record.

 

I believe (and I might well be wrong here) that the problem is partly due to the fact that a lot of these plants are only equipped with vintage equipment that is getting well past its "sell by" date. When the vinyl resurgence started a few years ago they could cope with small quantities for a niche market using old pressing machines as they had more time to monitor product via their QC. The cost of investment in newer equipment is astronomical, not to mention that no one is actually designing and producing new pressing gear anymore, and few companies, if any, would be willing to take that gamble on long-term recuperation of high investment costs whilst not knowing how long the vinyl interest will last. There is one plant in Europe that is struggling to keep up with the demand at the moment and as a result many Universal titles have been delayed several months. The machines it is using are well over 40 years old, well past their design life. A lot of presses would have been naturally decommissioned had vinyl production continued through the 80's / 90's / 00's unabated without CD to reduce sales of Lp's. New gear would have been produced to replace it, but as this wasn't the course of events most presses (and plants) were simply sold off and now the very same gear is being re-used by tiny organisations catering for an expanding specialist market. Is this a good thing?

 

Regarding QRP, I can't say about the warping, but regarding the dishing, I have never seen them post one piece of gossip on their Facebook page. I think they're pretty respectful in that regard.

 

I opened two more QRP pressed albums last night- Tenor Conclave and Jackie's Pal both were perfectly flat and pressed on center. I don't use a record clamp.

I am finding I have the worst experience with RTI recently- non-fill, surface noise and even scratches. At least the latter should be picked up by the people inspecting and sleeving them, but it's not. I have caught up on a lot of the older AP 45 rpm releases from Blue Note and the Fantasy series and RTI was much more consistent when they were pressing albums back then.

 

Maybe QRP should drop the full company description.

Otherwise, folks may think that QRP means "Quit Returning Products".

 

I have yet to get a substantially warped or dished record from QRP. And I have bought a few hundred.

 

Firstly new (and I mean newly designed and manufactured) presses are coming on line - GZ have just installed 2. QRP may refurbish old presses but they are completely re-engineered with modern digital controls to eliminate problems with temperature. My experience re dishing is completely the opposite. I have had one slightly dished record from QRP and no faulty product in any other respect. Also no dished pressings from RTI since the Classic 200 grm days. Have had one or two badly dished records from Optimal that I can remember that were exchanged. I do however get plenty audibly faulty product due to scratches and dull/bubbly looking patches in the vinyl. This works out at around 1 in 5 pressings recently which is not acceptable. I do suspect that customers are having to do the QC in most cases. Since most additional old presses are at least heavily worked on when recommissioned I doubt age is such a problem but lack of experience and pressure to keep up with demand. The degree of checking for production problems needed (each copy ideally ) is not being applied.

 

Waited 20 days for a replacement from hmv. My replacement has a more severe warp then my 1st one. I should just mail it to QRP and wrap it up in a Taco Bell paper so they get the idea.

 

Does anyone have an email address for QRP for complaints/returns ?

 

The most common cause of dishing is the record pressing plant not allowing long enough cooling time before the LP's are packaged. Cool down time is approximately 3 hours for 125 grams records and a overnight (at least 8 hours) for 180 grams records. After the cooling down period the records are ready for packaging. I can guess 200gm takes another few hours on top of the at least 8 hours.

Sounds like Quality records are failing on this side of the QC.