Sun Kil Moon - Ghosts of the Great Highway vinyl reissue out in February

I try to place my most treasured LPs in static free poly lined sleeves. I must admit though that many are still in their original paper sleeves (even some 50-60 year old ones), and they show no more audible noise than those with poly sleeves. Many sound better or as good as new vinyl of today.

I also have a bunch of original Beatles Parlophone LPs still in their original paper sleeves--those very smooth paper sleeves, and they seem as good as poly to my ears & eyes.

Is the paper particularly more abrasive on those European pressings' inner sleeves (Opima or GZ)? My (Rough Trade--is that a GZ pressing?)) Sun Kil Moon paper inner sleeves seem smooth and fine. I don't automatically replace the paper inner sleeves when I buy new vinyl.

Am I being a bad parent??



Oh, and what about those old Columbia (originally) sealed plastic "bag" inner sleeves? They did that till the middle or late 1960's? A couple of my Byrds etc original Columbia vinyl are still in those now opened inner sleeve "bags". No fogging etc after 50+ years. Though I have replaced my Columbia Dylan vinyl with poly sleeves.

 

Calling child services.

 

Well....every record I own is cleaned after purchase and put into poly sleeves. They also reduce static. I never leave records in paper or card sleeves ever.

Some paper sleeves have an ‘onion skin’ lining, though I almost never see that now and most of the paper or card inner sleeves I see now are completely unlined and are just scratching the records when you remove them. Poly sleeves are cheap if you look on eBay, no point in spending money on records to ruin them with bad inners. I want my records to look Near Mint in years to come. They sound better and it helps retain the value of my collection.

 

Excellent points!

 

Just got my copy from Amazon and its got quite a bit of surface noise throughout ... really bad on side A. I'm know wondering to order a replacement or just say screw it and return for refund.

Has anyone gotten a good pressing of this yet from Amazon?

 

Yep, mines silent virtually...which I didn’t expect from when I opened it. I got mine from Amazon UK. Try cleaning it if you can as mine had a lot of surface dirt but cleaned up really well with no hairlines or anything.

I don’t think they’ve helped with the these sleeves so the records need to be cut out as they’re just crappy paper inners.

 

This all sounds so terrible to get such low quality vinyl, packaging etc. I was lucky and ordered mine thru Bull Moose at the local store.
My Rough Trade vinyl is perfect in every way. Completely noise free, no lint or crap on the vinyl. Looks pristine out of the sleeve and plays better.
No surface noise -- perfect HQ audio.

I hope there are more of you so lucky!

It all must be so devastating and totally unacceptable!

 

I have VPI 16.5 and every record gets cleaned before it gets played. This one was no exception. Hopefully I'll have better luck with the next copy.

 

It is too bad that the discussion of this release understandably has become about the quality control, or lack of, of the vinyl itself, and not the amazing music contained within.

Since mine is luckily perfect, I can say it has given me an even greater appreciation of this brilliant Sun Kil Moon wonder.
And love the vinyl only bonus track, "Gentle Moon" (acoustic).

I may wear this out.

 

Just got my copy from Rough Trade. Doesn't appear to be from GZ. Not spun yet, will do after it gets a clean on my RCM. Bummer about the paper innersleeves. Look forward to comparing this with my original pressing.

Bring on April next!

 

I wonder if Benji will get repressed...

 

Benji, April and Among the Leaves - that would be marvellous!

 

Here is a photo of the d-side of the replacement copy JPC send me today:



Totally don't get why they are sending out garbage like that. And I definitely don't want to know if this comes off through washing or how it sounds. This is going back tomorrow. Because I refuse to treat new, full price vinyl like fleamarket finds.

 

I got my replacement copy and side A is significantly improved but side B track 2 has a crackle in the right channel throughout the entire song. I tried this song on both of my turntables and same noise. It is pretty distracting and very obvious. I am probably going to keep this copy as the rest is fine but the pressing job is pretty subpar. The actual sound and mastering sound good however, I just wish they went the extra mile and used a decent pressing plant with something other than the terrible paper inners.

 

So.... using a decent pressing plant nowadays is considered as "the extra mile"?

 

Has anyone A/B'd the US/EU versions?

 

My third copy from JPC arrived today and possibly looks even worse than the two I have returned:





It's beyond ridiculous to send this out as third replacement. This is going back again. And I guess that's it for me.

 

Wow what a pity. I guess I was really lucky. Same shop, same batch, perfect LP. Maybe try Amazon ? Or HHV ? Maybe they have a better batch. Good luck anyway.

 

Thank you!
Not entirely sure what I'm finding more grotesque; that a plant lets out copies like this or that the guys in the complaints department apparently don't bother to check if replacement copies have the same flaws as the returned albums.

Going to have a word with them on Monday.

 

Glad I just read this thread. I just ordered from amazon. If a return is necessary, it will be painless.

 

Yikes. Thanks all for the info I think I'll skip this one.

 

A lot of the damage is done by these terrible unlined paper sleeves. Surely, it would be worth that fraction more and save a lot of returns in the process. I got lucky with my copy, as it was pretty quiet and there wasn’t much visually left after a clean as I cut the records out the sleeves.

I did have to clean some horrible looking residue off though....it was lucky as if I had seen these reviews before, I probably wouldn’t have bothered.

 

I got the 2 recent John Prine U.S. reissue LPs and My Bloody Valentine ‘Loveless’ new reissue earlier this week and happily all came in poly lined inner sleeves. My copy of Sun Kil Moon is the Optimal pressing and it plays very well. Those paper inner sleeves are just awful. I think there are a few hairlines on my copy but it's very hard to avoid this. I can usually remove Optimal vinyl without the records touching the inner sleeves but these records were statically charged making it impossible. I used to cut the inner sleeves previously but this could prove problematic if I needed to return it to the store so I didn’t do that on this occasion. The problem is that the reissue label is too ‘cheap’ to specify polylined inners. It would, at most, probably add 10 cent to the retail cost and consumers would be far happier. The more I see stuff like this, the more my appreciation for the Japanese increases. They are way ahead of everybody else, imho.

 

Those replacement records are terrible! It is hard to believe that those are the Rough Trade Optimal pressings? If they came from GZ Vinyl I wouldn’t be fazed at all. There are really good pressings around of this one but it seems that jpc has got a really bad batch from the distributor. Since you are in Berlin, Germany, would it be feasible at all to contact Optimal Media who I understand are located to the north of the city? I forget the name of the town but you can find that online quite easily. Could be worth the effort?

Just checked and the town/city is Robel. It seems to be located to the north east of Berlin.