Part of my longstanding gripe with the label is their consistent lack of transparency. They just keep their heads down and don't respond to inquiries and criticism. In general, non-participants in the community of people who care about vinyl sound quality. So who knows? — except that the SQ of their releases makes you suspect the worst.
I picked up Maggot Brain, which isnt completely terrible...then I picked up First Step. Gave away the Faces, will never buy from them again.
I have a pressing they did of the first Hawkwind album. It is generally fine, but if it was sourced from a CD I would not be especially shocked. I would value that Hawkwind a bit more than my crappy Plain version of Mr Bungle California.
Wow, that's a lot of feedback which settles it, I'm not picking them up. I enjoy this forum as I can throw out a question and get a lot of feedback, quickly. Saved me some money, thanks!
Got the Black Crowes Southern Musical on Plain label. One of the worst LPs I have in regards to quality and sound. The fingerprints on the vinyl seems to be pressed into the wax. They strive for bad quality. They press records as a joke on hipsters.
I bought a Tim Buckley record, Goodbye and Hello. The cover was sumptuous, thick stock, nice inner sleeve. Nice label repro. It was a nice looking presentation. Until I placed the LP under a stylus. I was AMAZED at how bad the LP sounded. At first I thought maybe my controls got all futzed with on the receiver. The master took zero consideration into any of the decent sounding versions of this album on vinyl. It's almost like these people don't really understand that people play the records.
If you mean officially by them, no, they never admitted it to my knowledge, but a cursory examination of their pressings will usually reveal typical limitations and tell-tale signs from retail CD sources (if not MP3s!), some of them coming from badly brickwalled masterings or even bootleg copies.
I have 2 albums - Television by Television and River by Terry Reid. Both are nice flat, unmarked records and I have no problem at all with the quality of the audio. I'm now aware of all the bad press (I wasn't when I purchased those albums) and I would hesitate to pick up anything from them again but I have no complaints at all with my own purchases.
My 4menwithbeards Saints' I'm stranded it's no big deal because it's a raw punk lo-fi recording in the first place..
Of course not. This was one major point that another forum member brought up recently (http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/why-i-need-to-take-a-break-from-this-great-forum.756231/), and - my opinion of course - is a major blind spot over how this forum is mediated.
I have that one and it just makes me sad. So many ticks and pops. I cleaned it at least 3 times but no dice.
They're pretty damned awful. The only 4MWB I still own are the Bill Fay reissues because I don't have a couple grand layin' around for originals.
I have their reissue of John & Beverly Martyn's Stormbringer! and it actually sounds great. Then I bought their reissue of John Cale's Paris 1919. Just terrible. I was so upset. Never again.
Had three, some years ago: two Bauhaus LPs, one La Düsseldorf LP. All terrible, really terrible sounding to me, like a cassette, or like you were playing a decent LP on one of those children’s record players or something.
There’s a German pressed UK reissue of Paris 1919 that is pretty common as it was in print via mid price WEA, until at least 1991. Not as good as a US original but thoroughly recommended to fans of the album on a budget
I have the "blow Up ","Lolita",Zabriskie Point" ost and Aretha Franklin"Live at Fillmore West" and all titles are acceptable ,certainly don't get excited,but they are not to throw away.
I have one album from that label (Gravy Train - A Peaceful Man) and the sound quality is, to my ears anyway, really rather good. That is just one album though. 4MWB I have avoided due to all the negative feedback.
A friend bought the La Düsseldorf LP and one or two of the NEU! albums on 4MWB... he didn't know better. We listened to them and while the NEU! were pretty bad, the LD sounded terrible. It's almost like they purposefully sabotage the sound quality.
That's the real problem with them, zero consistency with those 4 Men W/Beards. The fact that they have put out some really good sounding records means that they CAN make a decent product...but at least half the time, they choose to go ahead and put out an obviously inferior product. Maddening.
The 4MWB Nina Simone pressings were shown in the recent film "Tyler Perry's Acrimony." First in an early scene by her future husband to hook Taraji P Henson's character on her voice. Later, when she throwing her man out of the house during a big dramatic scene, the main thing he wants to grab is his turntable and those Simone records. I remember saying out loud to my other half in the theatre, "Don't bother. Those pressings aren't worth it."