Endless Defective Brand New Vinyl

Same here; in those days, all you cared about was the music itself and the sound quality of the recording/production. These days...it starts with placing the album on the TT and ensuring there's no wiggle space/slack in the center hole. That's followed by placing the tonearm down and hoping for no swaying back and forth which indicates an off-center hole. Then it's 35-40 minutes of focusing as much on the possibility of unwanted noise as trying to focus on the music.

 

Agreed completely. I’ve loved the Kind of Blue, Forever Changes, Music from Big Pink (black Top border), and Blonde on Blonde MFSL reissues. I bought them largely based on the lavish praise for these which are also important titles in my collection and music appreciating life. Nearly every other reissue or more recent vintage new vinyl has been disappointing or “I guess it’s ok” at best.

Unless it’s one of my very favorite albums that this forum agrees has been significantly improved upon, I don’t need it. Although I keep an eye out to check out the Rhino Astral Weeks even though my W7 sounds great.

 

Somehow i have been very lucky with my vinyl purchases since 2006. All my used and new vinyl have been almost noise and pop free. The corners of some of the online/ sent thorugh the mail have been a little buggered up but i can let that go as long as i didn't pay a friggin arm and a leg for the LP. One many of the records though the arm will go up and down quite a bit but i check the records and no warping issues on any of them. Leads me to believe maybe the center hole is off or my TT feet are not centered properly on my sound receiver.

 

I have had a lot of luck lately with the Collected vinyl.
Not sure who is behind them, but they come in a plastic sleeve, they all seem to be best of albums, and every single piece of vinyl has been totally silent so far.
Just had quite a few box sets, Kate Bush remasters . 1st box was defective, got a replacement, and it’s now perfect.
2nd box with Hounds Of Love both defective, so waiting on Amazon to re stock since they pulled it due to complaints.
Box 3 was perfect.
The Police. Every move you make, had 1 defective vinyl, got a replacement now it’s perfect.
Level 42 collected. Perfect
Kool and the gang collected. Perfect
Status Quo collected. Perfect
Yazoo - 4Pieces vinyl box. All vinyl awful, badly scratched.
Got replacement , and that was even worse, worst box set ever.
Steve Perry Traces- deluxe 1st one defective, 2nd perfect
Bruce Springsteen Born in the USA. Perfect
The Beatles Number ones perfect
The Beatles Abbey Road - 3 copies all beyond noisy, and awful. All returned.

 

Yes! I couldn’t agree more.

 

Got a 45 rpm copy of Tea for the Tillerman and it is off center :/. It is not audible to me on my system, but considering the price I am going to request a replacement.

Not defective per say, but I purchased two copies of the All Things Must Pass for a really good deal on Amazon. They arrived in a large box with just one small bubble pad in there. Each box has a corner damaged . Neither are bad and I can live with it, but I got the second to have as a trade or something down the line and having it damaged sucks. Especially when it's totally avoidable by proper packaging.

 

I’d request a replacement for the Cat Stevens LP too. That’s $55.00? QRP pressed.

 

Yes QRP. And up to $75 for the 45 rpm version of that title.

It is quite stunning though.

 

I don’t doubt you. QRP does a great job with the mastering and the covers but has problems pressing records that are centered.

 

Unless it’s a special or audiophile release, I’m boycotting all Universal vinyl reissues. They’re the worst offenders of the bunch. Like they really care!!

Some of the vinyl copies of the Imagine remix that I purchased looked like the pavement of a NYC street (GZ pressed).

 

Avoid the single LP version of Bob Marley’s Legend LP. Universal again. I went through 2 copies. The quality of the vinyl is terrible. I don’t know if United pressed it, as they’re no longer using that circled u (in deadwax) to identify their pressings. This sure fits the bill of a United pressing.

Avoid at all costs. Total crap.

 

The Sheryl Crow RSD Tuesday Night Music Club is a bad pressing. Local record store won't return as they see it as a pressing issue, and unless I track UME down they aren't replacing.

It's my fault, should have waited for feedback before jumping in the deep end. But seems like buyer beware on most UMe pressings.

 

I was about to go for that on Amazon, then read the reviews.
I’ll give it a swerve.

 

Had some bad luck lately with vinyl, and it’s starting to wear me down a little.
5 Kate Bush vinyl II Box sets 4 defective it took the 5th to get a non defective copy of Hounds Of Love. Issues were 3. And Dream of sheep loud clicks and 1 copy had 1 bad scratch on running up that hill.
2 copies of Howard Jones - Humans Lib white vinyl. Both defective in the same place. Loud pops on track 1 side 1. And side 2 track 1
Howard Jones Dream into action. Green vinyl. Defective. Loud pops on one track
Ingrid Michaelson new Christmas album defective. Side 2 has bad distortion on 1 track, not on the cd, it starts with pops then turns into distortion.
It’s just a long list of returns to Amazon.
And tried cleaning and made no difference.
Had a 3rd copy of Yazoo 4 pieces, once again Upstairs at Eric’s was beyond defective, sounded like a 50 year old beaten up copy, and had loud pops
It seems that vinyl is getting worse not better.
When it’s done right, like The Police. Every move you make. Box set then it’s fantastic to own, but all this constant stress, knowing I have to immediately play test something and lately it’s with good reason.

 

For new vinyl I had a worse track record this year than ever before. I've now reached a zen-like acceptance. I just make sure it's returnable, and I don't expect much. I return it and then usually get a better one or I return it twice and get a better one. I figure it's like working in sales- you accept the rejection rate as part of life and carry on. Yes it sucks and it shouldn't be but I'd rather still buy vinyl so I accept it. Returns are annoying but don't take much time or energy. I don't buy new vinyl if it can't be exchanged. Also if the defect doesn't sound, I keep it. It sucks but I don't think it will change. There's not enough people who care, despite the percentage who are on the forum.

OHMMMMMMMMM

 

It seems every example given in this thread is a reissue. I'm having great luck with new vinyl but I'm not buying the same records that others here are.

Maybe this is a reissue thing. Maybe current artists are more hands-on with the quality control of their product, rather than legacy acts who have little input/interest/participation. I remember The Rolling Stones looking visibly bored with their own un-boxing publicity video for whatever reissue that was being released recently. I doubt any of them ever bothered to check out their own product.

Just a theory.

 

It’s a good theory too, but in my case I get both.
Example the brand new Ingrid Michaelson Christmas album ,brand new release, and that was defective, same with Chvrches Every Open Eye. Brand new release and it had major pressing issues.

 

Most of the new vinyl I bought this year were New releases. It's no better. Probably even worse.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

I call GZ “The King of the Hairline”.

 

Good choice. Stay far away.

 

I just returned to vinyl after nearly 30 years off.

For me, I remember the 70's being a real horror show with the low grade reground vinyl. I returned several LPs with what appeared to be pieces of metal embedded in the groove. Thank goodness I didn't run my stylus through any of those. I started by import pressings of many albums because the US pressings from most of the major labels were awful. Noisy and mediocre sound at best. There were labels that were exceptions to this but they were definitely the exception not the rule.

As for modern pressings it seems to be the best of times and the worst of time. I have some new LPs that are dead quiet. Even at loud volume there is absolutely no noise to be found. Part of this is my Parasound Hint 6 and JC3 Jr, but much of it is the quality of the pressing. I never knew albums could be dead quiet like that. Then there are pressing that bring me back to the worst of the early 70's. Nearly 50 years later you would think the quality could be improved across the board.

But the thing that absolutely make me CRAZY enough that I want to bang my head against the wall is how many deluxe box sets are packaged. You pay big bucks for a multi LP special edition box set, you break open the shrink wrap only too find:

1) Cheap shredding paper inner sleeves-to me this shows zero thought and zero concern for their product.
2) Plastic liner sleeves that may look similar to MoFi inners, but the MoFis are anti-static and these sleeves are the opposite. It is often difficult to remove the LP because the inner sleeve is stuck to it like glue.
3) The Frankenstein version of 1 and 2: A thick paper sleeve lined with a plastic inner sleeve that is not anti-static and instead behaves like a second skin.

Really? You pay $50 for a 2 record special edition box set and this is the best they can do? Arrrrggghhhh.

 

Well put. I feel like the actual vinyl material is great right now, it's just that the discs can't seem to arrive to the store/mail unscathed.

 

I rarely had issues with 70's vinyl. Occasionally warped but, aside from that, pretty good overall.

 

I find this VERY hard to believe. I am not saying I don't believe you, but for me the 70's were a nightmare. Now that you mention it, I remember warping being a serious issue too. That was the period where RCA had their Dynawarp, er I mean Dynaflex records. I can't tell you how many of those I returned because they were severely warped fresh out of the shrink wrap. If the Dynaflex disk made it out of the sleeve, didn't look like a black taco and made it onto my turntable they often had lackluster sound. I also got many off-center pressings. But as I mentioned in my earlier post: for me the biggest worry was the vinyl with foreign materials pressed into the vinyl. I typically bought the best cartridge my turntable could handle and it was a huge investment. I was terrified of destroying the stylus hitting a piece of steel wool-like debris traveling at 33 RPM. One such record I bought that had foreign matter was not an isolated incident. I happened to buy that disk at a local independent record store where I was a regular. I knew the manger quite well, we had similar tastes in music and spent lots of time talking tunes. When he saw the metal fragments in the disk, he was more upset than I was. He went to the racks and pulled out a replacement copy for me. With my permission he opened it right in the store. We found more foreign matter. A third copy: the same. He said that's it I am returning the whole lot.

Back to our totally different impressions of the quality of 70's vinyl. I totally believe you, while I am puzzled too. I noticed you are on the west coast. I am on the east coast. I wonder if there was a large quality difference in the pressing plants your vinyl was coming from vs. mine. Perhaps the music we liked was on different labels. The other thing I find interesting is back then bad pressings were a normal routine for me. These days I have better luck. I was in high school and college back then and I have to believe I am more fussy now than I was then. But the majority of bad records I ran into were purchased back then.

 

I'm in the same situation with this one.