Just had a guy write to me that the sealed Zappa "Roxy & Elsewhere" album that I sold him actually has "Apostrophe" as the first album in the set. Gave him a full refund of course, but this really p****s me off. Defects are bad enough, but getting an entirely unrelated LP in a two-album set? I'm never selling a sealed record again... Sorry--this is the first thread I found to vent on!
Happens every once in awhile I’m afraid. Companies in too much of a hurry to get product out the door I guess. Happened to me about 10 years ago when I got the Fleetwood Mac s/t double 45rpm, got 2 records of sides one and two. I even remember buying the White Album as a Christmas gift for my sister in the early 70’s and one record was Sgt. Pepper.
You'd be surprised. Over the decades, I've had to exchange a handful of albums that had the wrong disc in them -- on a couple of occasions, it was a double LP that had two of disc 1 and no disc 2!
I hear your frustration as I bought a 3LP Who Live At Leeds and it arrived with all discs saucer shaped and only partly playable and the jacket looked like an elephant had sat on it! Oh Amazon's outer packing box was perfect so they knew it looked skewing from the get go. Solution: Too big to deal with, care or have systems in place to make any difference so vote with your wallet and give them a wide berth!
yeah, I’ve pretty much stopped buying new vinyl because of this, except for the most special of the special releases to me. I’ve gone from buying 5-6 titles a month to maybe 5-6 titles a year. I still buy CD’s now and then, rip them to iTunes, and supplement with streaming services.
Ditto. At the current price and quality, I mostly buy what I consider exceptional album. Reviews on this forum also help in my decision. I noticed that some labels are definitely pressing very good to excellent quality vinyl while others are pressing pure you know what. Investing in a quality DAC is also a good strategy if one is looking for a side move to vinyl.
Had some tough luck with vinyl lately, ordered 2 orange vinyl versions of the new Abba album from Amazon, both defective on track 1 side 2, huge click tracks at the start of the song for the first 30 seconds, so i tried the black vinyl version and exactly the same issue, i then purchased the Steve Perry Christmas album from Target on red vinyl and that was clean, and i grabbed the clear vinyl Walmart exclusive of Journey Escape for $15 and that was fine. I would say 95% of vinyl i get from Amazon i have to return, yet Target vinyl seems always to be fine. It must be just luck i assume ? because Amazon have no control on pressing, unless it’s due to poor storage ? i just know over the last 2-3 years i have had to return an amazing amount of vinyl to them, and while I accept surface noise as normal for vinyl, i wont deal with loud clicks and warped brand new vinyl when they are charging $25 for it.
Amazon storing vinyl badly that would explain a lot, I got a 3LP Live At Leeds that looked saucer shaped and could barely play! N.b. Outer packing box was perfect.
(Almost) All the warped vinyl I've ever gotten have been from amazon, which makes me think it has something to do with their storage.
Have long since reached the point where I would not return something that clicked for 30 seconds on the basis that the replacement would probably click for a minute
Got James Brown's Payback 2LP... Both discs were warped (though not bad enough to be unplayable), but the real issue was that the 2nd LP was for a different Brown LP, not for Payback, label and all. They just somehow stuck a different album's 2nd LP (Jungle Groove) in there instead of Payback's. And now the retailer isn't responding to my inquires about an exchange.
Anyone finding a noticeable dip in quality recently? I’ve had issues for a few recent buys…and Takt Direct pressed in Poland records seem to be a big part of my latest issues. I’m finding an increase in record labels using this amateur pressing plant. I absolutely never get inner groove distortion but some of their pressings exhibit a kind of fuzzy distortion at the top end similar to this effect and I’m convinced it may be an issue with plating. I also think their records seem to sound flatter aswell and typically have excessive surface noise and dents in the lead in groove. I don’t think I will bother if I see a ‘Pressed in Poland’ sticker on the back. I would actually prefer a record to be pressed at United than Takt and that’s saying something….
Strangely I was just saying to my wife how lucky I’ve been with vinyl recently and that none of the last few new or used records I’ve bought have had any issues. I’ve had a couple from Poland I think but no issues with them. (Probably jinxed it now!)
i think these things go in cycles, i've had periods where every second one was awful, others where i maybe got a dozen in a row that was at least good enough not to bother about. modern vinyl is too bad to make any big generalisations about improvements in quality imo, if yr witnessing a brief personal uptick you can guarantee that normal service will reassert itself sooner or later
Bump, only to say that while I seemed to have really good luck with new vinyl being flawless, seems my luck has run out! Over the last six months or so, almost every new vinyl I got had some issue, or other, with it; warps, dished, non-fill, scratches, etc, etc. Years of buying vinyl, I've never seen QC this bad. There's been some great, standout releases, but most have been crap pressings, some even from "reputable" pressing plants.
I would say one thing I’m noticing more than I used to at the moment is records being off centre. It’s ridiculous!