Another tread about scratched new vinyl records

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by Johan Bos, Dec 30, 2018.

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  1. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Thansk for your suggestion. After playing the same record on my girlgriends turntable I decided I was done and visited my local record store where I bought the record. I didn't had the receipt anymore as in the beginning I checked the record and thought the distortion was caused by my amplifier running out of power because of the possibly difficult load of my big electrostatic panels. The shop owner was friendly and I told her my story. She confirmed this was a well known problem and told me The Beatles had a record with a similar (sibilance) problem as well. She played the record with her own player and it sounded quite good. Still not very good, but acceptable. The strong distortion was not audible, it was just mediocore quality with a subtle hint of possible distortion. I told her I was ok with this quality but she told me it didn't sound good. She offered orderning a new version of the record but we agreed it would probably have the same problem at the same tracks. I asked if I could change it for a different record and she agreed. I was happy and bought a nice CD of a local singer that sings in a local dialect. I decided to buy Tubular Bells 2 by Mike Oldfield also. I'm currently playing this record (vinyl) and it sounds very nice to my ears. No warping, no scratches, nice inner sleeve (with soft plastic inner). It seems to be a bit off center as the tonearms swings about 1 mm to the sides but I suppose as long as it sounds good this is no problem. Now I'm going to contact the foreign shop for the 3 lp live in toronto and paris album that has scratches on it... I didn't got a reply on my questions from the Queenlandroad music label yet.
     
  2. JustGotPaid

    JustGotPaid Forum Resident

    When records are $25+ these poor QC lp'd are unacceptable. I had a recent lp made by United end up being an epic fail. I mean really???? I know to avoid them but this was a gift...... I may as well go back to buying cd's since they are so cheap.
     
  3. TheVU

    TheVU Forum Resident

    Question. Was the original album recorded on tape or digitally?

    Cause if they started pressing Harry Connick Jr. records, I wouldn’t buy them. Who wants a DDD record? Chances are it would be a ****ed up version of the CD.

    If it was a Astrud Gilberto album, I’d give it a shot.
     
  4. The Pinhead

    The Pinhead KING OF BOOM AND SIZZLE IN HELL

    Warped/dished I wasn't new to. Off center I started seeing after 2010. This said, I own about 150 records (my first batch was stolen in its entirety in the 80s). Used to moan about not having more, but after my last move, I was glad I didn't , because I would not have the space to stash them. They are so expensive now I doubt I'll ever buy one again, unless it's a very special one and a vinyl-only release I want very badly.
     
  5. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    I'm still waiting for a reply from Quinlanroad.com (website / label Loreena McKennit). I sent another mail. I get the impression that most record labels are just not interested and don't care about what customers think about scratched and warped records. Last year I emailed "Push entrtainment" because of a very noisy and very compressed Tubular Bells record by Mike Oldfield. They answered that they were sorry to hear about this and were looking for a fix and would report back. Never heard again from them.

    I emailed the shop where I bought the 3 album record (in foreign country) but their mailserver returns an error.

    It is very easy to spend a lot of money for a record and sellers are often very enthousiastic about the products they sell but it seems to be quite difficult to get a good record. Next time I will ask the shop owner if I can see the records before buying expensive new sealed records.
     
  6. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Some care, some dont. As you decided doing I suggest asking for some sort of insurance that its a satisfactory product before going home with it. I can always return stuff that I dont like the local shop where I order from. Or even just sell it back if I dont like the music that much, just lose out on a few dollars for him to resell it at a slightly lower price.
     
  7. E.Baba

    E.Baba Forum Resident

    Bad records but good service.
     
  8. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Hi, I didn't get any reply from Quinlanroad, even though I sented my message twice.

    Two days ago I bought "Return to Ommadawn" by Mike Oldfield. It sounds great but on side #2 there is a clear aubible "plop". It's just 1 short plop sound, but after close inspection under bright light I can see a suble small scratch. It's only on side #2. Not sure if it is the cause of the plop sound.

    I'm amazed how often I get these problems with new vinyl. Currently my girlfriend is listening to a 20 year old record, no "plop" sound at all...
     
  9. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Is 1 pop really that aggravating?
     
  10. PATB

    PATB Recovering Vinyl Junkie

    Location:
    SF Bay Area
    Take all of these posts of perfect vinyl with a grain of salt. If a pop or clicks here and there bother you, vinyl will be a very frustrating experience for you.
     
    MusicNBeer, willboy, Lucca90 and 2 others like this.
  11. IFP

    IFP Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    Never!? I'm surprised, unless you mean simply not off-centered to bother you. I only have about 150 lps, from the '60s right up through 2018, but I'd say about 50% are off-center enough to visually swing the tonearm when I look closely. A smaller amount, maybe 25%, are off enough to be audible and require a reaming, but the phenomenon seems to go all the way back and has never been that uncommon. That's a personal anectdote, clearly, but could I really just be that unlucky?
     
    MusicNBeer likes this.
  12. Madison Mike

    Madison Mike Forum Resident

    Location:
    Madison
    Have never noticed a tonearm swing in the horizontal plane. I will look more closely in the future to see if it's something more subtle.

    Vertically is another story- is it too much to ask for a record that's pressed flat? Most offenders in my collection are newer pressings. I've had to return a number of them.
     
  13. Mmmark

    Mmmark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Never ceases to amaze me how some players in this small community build poor customer service right into their business model....
    More to the point, I do buy from local record stores when I can (those that will return or exchange defective pressings), and Amazon's return policy is virtually as good as it gets...
     
    Strat-Mangler likes this.
  14. Nephrodoc

    Nephrodoc Forum Resident

    I’ve also had bad luck with quite a few MFSL titles. Been fortunate that Music Direct has taken care of me every time. I would not buy these from any other retailer for this reason.
     
  15. Tim 2

    Tim 2 MORE MUSIC PLEASE

    Location:
    Alberta Canada
    Your giving me another reason not to miss vinyl.
     
  16. Maltman

    Maltman Somewhat grumpy, but harmless old man.

    Location:
    Vancouver Canada
    I’ve said this before, but the 75th Anniversary Blue Note reissues are absolutely disgusting. I bought six recently and two of them, brand new out of the sleeves, looked like they had been to one frat party too many. One actually had a chip out of the edge. They both went back to the record store and were taken back for credit no problem. Apparently, their shortcomings are well known. The others I cleaned and despite a few pops, some surface noise and slight warpage I decided to keep them. They are obviously copied from CDs and don’t sound much like original pressings, but for 20 bucks I guess that’s what you can expect. Used original Blue Notes can run well into the $hundreds. I have also returned a few Wax Time and DOL pressings that have been almost unlistenable. It’s hit and miss with all of these cheaper reissues, but they cost a fraction of the somewhat overrated. Music Matters versions.
     
    patient_ot likes this.
  17. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Another trend/thread ?
     
  18. patient_ot

    patient_ot Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, those 75th issues were pressed mainly at United and were a horror story from day one. I avoided them like the plague.

    The Wax Time, DOL, and other Euro public domain stuff is definitely CD sourced at best. Probably illegally downloaded CDs at that.

    When I want a cheap BN fix I look for old McMaster CDs or 70s LP pressings with RVG in the deadwax.
     
  19. Maltman

    Maltman Somewhat grumpy, but harmless old man.

    Location:
    Vancouver Canada
    Yeah, I should have done a bit of reading up here before diving in for a bunch of these crap reissues. I’ll try to find decent originals from now on, but they are getting harder to find and more expensive all the time.
     
  20. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    That's very frustrative
     
  21. GyroSE

    GyroSE Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sweden
    I've a few of these but they were probably pressed over here in Europe. These pressings are flawless and soundwise they actually do sound good to these ears.
     
  22. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Hi everyone, here I am, again, with another bad vinyl record. After buying 2 vinyl records of Mike Oldfield, both beiing in good physical and audio qualiy, one in mint condition and another with "only" one small superficial scratch, I decided to buy the rahter expensive and harder to get "Man on the rocks" 2 LP album. I ordered in a foreighn country though Discogs as, if I'm correct, it's not produced at the moment. I payed 45 euro's, 13 euro's shipping included.

    I got it very quickly, very well packed, sealed and it looked great. But after inspecting both records I found out that record #2 had a small (about 1.5 mm length, 1mm width) "spot". This spot looks like it was baked into the vinyl when it was hot / weak, during the pressing. This is just a guess as I have no idea what it is. Afther washing the record in my Spin Clean the spot did not disappear. After making the spot wet and rubbing on it with a cloth it just stays there. So I guess it could be merged in the vinyl.

    When playing this side (side #3 of 4 sides), during this last track on this record, somewhere in the middle, the stylus hits this spot 2 or 3 times resulting in "popping" sounds.

    The reason for still buying vinyl despite frequent bad experiences is because in this particular case I've read bad reviews about applied compression on the digital (CD) versions of this particular album. And I prefer the vinyl medium to CD or even worse (to me) streaming. But al these high prices for ****ty qualiy and no? quality control drives me crazy. Also the record companies that just don't reply at all when mailing them these cases. This record is from Virgin Records. They have a fancy website but no contact option at all.

    What do you think about this case? Should I return the record to the seller that sent it very fast and packed it very well and complain about the spot on the record? It would mean extra costs for shipping it back and the extra hassle and would a different copy be better at all? The rest of the records are fine, look good and everything sounds just good. Just this one stupid spot that produces 3 loud pops...

    These are two photos of the record that has this spot: ( it's in the center in the image)

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]
     
  23. Leonthepro

    Leonthepro Skeptically Optimistic

    Location:
    Sweden
    Try using a toothpick, wet if you want to be more gentle, or a sewing needle to be very rough and try to plow through the spot. Its either some very cemented debris or its label residue thats gotten stuck in the vinyl while it was pressed. You have nothing to lose if you want to return it anyway so see if you can remove it or clear the grooves a bit at least.
     
  24. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Thanks Leonthepro for your good advice. I will keep the record with the spot as it doesn't really bother me. Yesterday I listened the whole album (both records) and even din't notice the two pops as I wasn't paying attention. It seems that it's only a problem when checking the new records visually and waiting for the track that has this minor problem. So I keep it and I'm happy with it as the sound quality is very nice. Afther listening this album two times yesterday evening I listened to an older Oldfield record. I must admit that sound quality of some recent vinyls is very good. There was only a bit of sibilance (pronounced 's' sounds) to be heard so I will do a stylus wear check soon.
     
    Last edited: Feb 3, 2019
    Leonthepro likes this.
  25. Johan Bos

    Johan Bos Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Netherlands
    Hi, another question is about labels of new records: I bought an 180 grams heavy album and it has a figure-eight carved in it's label on one side. I accedentily dropped the record when turning it from side A to B but it was just a few centimers so the record grooves are just fine. I'm wondering if this figure-eight carved pattern was caused by my own dropping a few centimeters of the record on the tturntable spindle, or it is from the vinyl factory? When looking from a close disntance there is a small thin line in a figure-eight pattren starting end ending at the hole in the center of the label. As the spindle in my turntable (PL12D) is very smooth I would think this is caused in the factory, not bu accidentely dropping the label on the turntable spindle?

    Below is a picture of the label. The scratch starts at the top of the center hole (twelve o'clock) and ends a bit lower on the left hand side.

    [​IMG]
     
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