This Annoying Record Pressing Fault NEEDS to stop! - White Stripes Elephant 20th Anniversary Edition
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- If you've every bought a new vinyl record with those annoying bubbles or dimples on the record surface, you'll know just how annoying it can be.
It happens all too often and they certainly are audible. In this video I showcase one of THE WORST examples of this pressing imperfection I've ever seen on a new records.
The record in question is a copy of The White Stripes - Elephant, which is a superb album recorded at Toe Rag Studios in London (A studio with all-analog gear). No computers were used during the writing, recording, mixing, and mastering of this album, so it's such a shame to have this 20th-anniversary copy of Elephant spoilt by surface imperfections like this.
Fortunately, I was able to source another copy that is free of this issue.
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As a general rule the quality control of records pressed by in the 70's (using thinner vinyl) was much better than the overpriced 180g records you get today.
I do find less of this with older records, for sure
@@soundmatters 70's records produced during the 70s oil crisis were noisy, because they used recycled vinyl. It was also difficult to find a pressing that wasn't warped.
@@johnstone7697 Noisy vinyl is usually due to:
-- Not cleaning the record.
-- Not properly dialing in the turntable / tone-arm / cartridge. There are a number of settings.
Most people never heard of them (other than, perhaps, the weight and the anti-skating). Even fewer people have it all professionally dialed in. Very few have the skills or the equipment to dial it all in.
I know about all of the above, and yet I possess neither the skills nor the equipment to get it all dialed in properly. Fortunately, I know an expert. After he dialed everything in, I have rarely had a noisy record.
Dialing it all in, correctly, takes at least 60 minutes. Very few people have had that done. And if you asked 100 people that own turntables, my guess is that maybe 1 of them even knows someone that has it all dialed in correctly.
Aside from records playing quietly, they also sound better, when dialed in correctly.
This is not imperfection, this is pure garbage! I don't spend money for overpriced garbage! I'm done with vinyl!
@@johnstone7697 Not true. My 70's records bought new at the time still sound perfect. Look after them properly.
I've dramatically reduced my vinyl buying because I'm sick to the back teeth of paying a fortune for really badly pressed vinyl. I know from reading the reviews of the same pressing on discogs after I've purchased that this is NOT a one-off. I would say a good 50% at least of what I've bought over the last year has had so much annoying crackle and clicks I've gone back to playing the digital versions
Sad to hear. No doubt the quality control is an issue, though my failure rate isn’t as high as yours at the moment.
Five years ago was a different story altogether; back then I’d say it was very high indeed! I feel your pain.
Yes, sadly I’ve found the same. My copy of the 2018 Animals re-mix has terrible background noise, and my copy of Plastic Ono Band jumps in one place. Had these not been gifts (I request vinyl for Xmas and birthday presents), I’d have sent them both back. My older LPs, especially from the early 70s, all play perfectly fine…….
I’d say mine is at least 50% failure rate. It’s absolutely maddening. The real exception is when you find a consistently quiet pressing. It should be the opposite. I don’t know why this isn’t talked about more and why we as consumers don’t demand better. Maybe it’s because 50% of records buyers don’t even own a turntable!
Same here thank goodness I keep all my original records but if I do replace with a newer version if it’s not 100% it’s going back 😊
Ian Smith! I stopped my vinyl buying early 1990s. I bought a few 5 years ago to feel fresh vinyl in my hands. I don't plan to pick it up again. I don't waste my money for high overpriced mispressings! mp3 downloads played on PC combined with a good stereo system is a total knock out hit for vinyl!
My favorite pressing error is having a misplaced center label covering part of the run out groove. I absolutely love having to sit by the lift every time I need to spin so as to not rip my stylus off.
😂 if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry 🎧🎶
The big downside of colored vinyl is these defects are very hard to spot. With black vinyl they are very easy to see.
I agree - colored vinyl is overrated - very tough to spot flaws and scratches.
Good video, Mark! I am also very frustrated by the quality control of vinyl records. I have been collecting for about 50 years (while taking a break in the 90’s like most music fans). They say that the prime period to collect records was the 1950’s and 1960’s before albums became a cultural phenomenon. I am not quite THAT old, but defects have always been an issue - skips and warps were the biggest problems in the 1970s and 1980s, but now I am finding records pressed off centre, divots on the playing surface, distortion, and dirt and marks on the records as if it was a used record - I excusable, given the price of records these days. Worst offenders - Radiohead OKNOTOK blue vinyl with a divot right at the beginning of “Lucky”, terrible distortion on Record 3 of the National High Violet anniversary edition, and a Record Store Day Rush Cygnus pairing with a huge gash across it. Rainbo records used to be the worst offender but the problem persists with almost all the pressing plants. Disappointing indeed!
Thanks Joseph! It’s a frustrating one. Just as I was feeling like the problems were becoming less common, I get this as one of the worst examples I’ve seen of this “bubbles and dimples” issue.
Shame about Ok not ok - love OK Computer
Thanks again, Mark! You are certainly keeping on top of things by checking the condition of new records within the 14 to 30 day return windows. I tend to keep records sealed until I am ready to listen to them properly, which can be months or even years. Records are meant to be played and so I really should play them within the return window. Keep up the great work - your passion and enthusiasm is contagious.
It can happen so much, but it's not allowed to happen. Would I forget to pay the stuff I ordered, they would request, that I pay and would punish me by taking some additional money.
"Vinyl was never any good." Rudy Van Gelder, one of the greatest recording engineers ever
It couldn't be good, alone that everything what improves quality, makes it more expensive and incompatible to inexpensive players.
I’ve recently had this problem when trying to buy Lana Del Rey’s ‘Lust for Life’. After four attempts at buying this album I gave up and bought a digital cop instead which is a real shame because it’s a fantastic album and leaves a hole in my LDR vinyl collection. What makes this worse is that prices just seem to go up without keeping quality standards high and the recent trend in no longer providing download codes as was routinely the case just a few years ago
Great video, thanks for sharing. I too have seen these imperfections on records, some very bad and on one record there was a blob no bigger than a drip and was a completely different material, I think it was paper pressed on the record. Total disater. Some blobs or pits were bearly noticeable as they are smooth and would appear as a rumbling sound. But yes quite common.
It a common enough experience for me as well, though not to the degree with the White Stripes record you showed. It is very frustrating, particularly when you're paying for an "audiophile pressing." The most annoying flaw I've encountered is a weird hiss, like a "shhhhsk" in a particular spot, like static or as though there was dirt in the groove. But visually inspecting the location I can't see anything, and no amount of cleaning removes this very audible "shhhsk". The record stores around me won't do an exchange unless the record is "unplayable," such as a bad warp or a repeat. And it's too much hassle to go through the return shipping on a mail order. That "shhhsk" I hear on some records seems to be hit or miss because I ask others if they noticed the same flaw, and usually the reply is they don't. So it's not a recording flaw, but a pressing flaw. Anyway, the QC with some record plants is pretty shoddy IMO and experience. I even once got a new sealed record with a hand print on it. I thought they wore white gloves?
Yea, this is one of the worst examples of this issue I've seen. I'm willing to tolerate some degree of imperfection with a physical medium, but there's definitely a line crossed a little too often. Needs sorting out, as I really want the vinyl format to continue thriving!
That hiss sound I have had once... I'm tempted to try it in something like the Degritter to see if it can help. I appreciate that's not an option for all! Thanks for watching. Happy listening!
Quality control technician at a vinyl pressing plant (not Third Man) here - just wanted to issue some clarifications about dimples:
1. Dimpling typically occurs when a small piece of debris manages to get underneath a stamper while it's attached to the mold - this causes a small (convex) protrusion on the stamper which shows up as a (concave) dimple on the record. Sometimes, removing and cleaning the stamper can be enough to alleviate the issue, other times the appearance of a single sounding dimple can be enough to render a stamper unusable.
2. Dimples and air bubbles aren't the same thing, it's fairly normal for there to be a tiny air pocket inside of a record, you just usually can't spot it on opaque records, but they show up easily on transparent ones. Air bubbles shouldn't cause any sounding defects as they don't typically breach the playing surface, but dimples sometimes do.
3. The sounding defect that dimples produce is best characterized as a low bassy "thud" sound, which is often masked by low-end in the mix. I have a copy of this record myself, and I'd characterize its sound the way you do, as having an overabundance of pops and clicks. This probably isn't because of the dimples you're describing, but because of either pressing on worn stampers, or approving test pressings that weren't up to high standards. Since some people have claimed to have gotten good-sounding copies of this new run of Elephant, I'd assume it's probably the former, which the presence of dimples would reinforce. Third Man probably pressed more copies than is recommended on the stampers they had even after running into issues, when they should've ordered more stampers from their cutting partner instead.
Hope this clears some things up, I know it can be a real pain to be a vinyl collector these days as it's not enough to secure a sealed copy of a record you love, knowing that there could be an undiscovered defect lying in wait. I do wish standards at pressing plants would be higher, but I think it's mostly an issue with management rushing product and not worrying about consumer concerns. Thanks for the video!
I have the first UK pressing red and white colored discs of Elephant I bought in 2003 just a month after official release and is still in near mint condition. My most prized record in my collection. As for pressing issues I acquired another album in 2006 "Dub Side Of The Moon" By Easystar Allstar's a Jamaican full album reggae version of Pink Floyd's classic "Dark side of the Moon" when the Time song transitioned to Brain Damage the needle would make a loud pop then jump some air repeating the process again. When looking closer with a microscope I saw a speck of sawdust??or a dead mosquito?? I had to pick and pry it off the grooves with a pin. it worked and the sticky skips stopped and now plays right through (thank goodness) but the needle crackles still remain in that one spot. The disc was red colored it did have faint frequent crackling throughout (Like many old colored discs).
Since getting into vinyl just before Christmas, of the seven albums I have purchased, 5 have been returned with faults much worse than what you have shown. I have a photo library now of faults.
I am on my third attempt at the Taylor Swift 2023 RSD album. Two have had holes in them so big you could put the tip of a toothpick in the hole. Completely unplayable. The obvious problem here of course is that so many flippers and speculators are keeping the albums sealed for value reasons. If I am on my third copy… how many dodgy albums are lurking out there sealed up waiting for an unsuspecting buyer sometime in the future?
Surprising as it seems to have been manufactured in house by TMR. I work in a pressing plant and see these sorts of things all the time. We do try to mitigate the issue by changing stampers or making adjustments to the temperature of the press, that sort of thing. There are two stages of Quality control on the pressing side of things. First it’s us as the operator to see them and toss the defected records, but as we are pressing records every 30 seconds and there is so much we have to do in that cycle time before the press opens again, we only catch so much. Second is the actual quality control team who check every hour or so. If they catch audible pops and clicks, they will investigate what is causing it, and often times toss the whole lot only to have us start all over. So there is motivation for us operators to not tray bad records because the potential hours of work could just get tossed if a keen eyed QA team member catches your poor work. That being said, that sort of thing looks like either non-fill or splatter damage. But having checked discogs page for this release, it seems they used a marble type mix that doesn’t involve adding splatter to the stamper itself. So I’m leaning towards non-fill which can be mitigated on site by having the presses up to proper temperatures. It seems Jack White and Co were eager to get these pressed and out the door and rushed the process.
Thanks for your insight. I have so many questions - but sadly this isn't really the place to ask them being a public forum. I can't figure out contact info.. alas.
My hunch is that the pressing plants can’t keep up with the high demand and quality control suffers as a result. Also tradition holds that colored vinyl is a novelty item and inherently inferior to black vinyl
Hey Greg - I tend to agree; I think many plants are pressed to the edge. Excuse the pun. I don't take the view that they're doing it on purpose. I had stopped seeing this issue for a while, leading me to believe it was being addressed, but maybe not. Time will tell.
@@soundmattersI wouldn't be surprised if it picked up again due to Adele's 30 and Taylor Swift's Midnights had huge orders, which combined with the lack of pressing plants, it wouldn't surprise me if they're being stretched thin
50% chance a new vinyl record will be warped (even a little is not acceptable), have dimple/s, or misaligned. I’ve returned so many albums the past five years it’s ridiculous!
50% - blimey! I've clearly not been quite as unlucky. I feel your pain on having to return for faults though. Thanks for watching
It’s getting very difficult to buy a perfect record again, it’s the 80’s all over again, poor pressing and very poor quality checking and handling.
This is why I went to CD, buying the Mission DAD7000, the first high quality CD player in the mid 80’s.
I purchased a record player again last year, and now regretting it, the LP horror has returned.
Buying a box set, GREATLY increases the risk of at least one LP being no good.
Pink Floyd Animals has been a real issue, in standard 180g or the special release, I gave up in the end, trying to buy a playable copy.
Yeah here in the States Walmart has been selling vinyl and have a number of exclusive-to-Walmart color vinyl selections. I got a double album Best of ELO, one disk in red vinyl, the other in white and one side of the red disk has two or three very visible--and AUDIBLE--depressions from what look like collapsed bubbles in the vinyl. Quality control is definitely lacking. This form of defect is something I don't think I've ever encountered on vintage vinyl. I wonder if the working temperatures of the color formulations are different and not being taken into consideration? Not sure, but I was not happy.
Damn. I've never seen it on a 60s record. I have on some 70s - definitely on a fair few 80s! 60s and early 70s I always find to be pretty safe.
If we keep putting up with subpar pressings they'll keep making them.
As prices rise, quality seems to fall.
I want to know why I can get some standard titles shipped to my door for about $42 aud
Where others the shipping alone is $36 and the total cost shipped to my door ends up around $75 aud?
I just don't understand the price difference
Traditionally, the bubbles are signs that ground up recycled vinyl was added to the pellets used to make the vinyl pucks. These bubbles are solid and not empty balloons. They can often not heat up the same as the rest of the vinyl pellets and make bumps.
After pressing, what do you think is done with the excess vinyl trimmed off the edge of the record and/or the defective pressings? It falls into a barrel and then ground up and re-used.
Back in the 1970's, when using recycled vinyl was most prevalent, record companies, like Capitol Records, sent out demand letters that radio stations return their surplus, worn out or unused promos back to Capitol for recycling or they would stop sending us records.
Consequently we stopped receiving Capitol promos, because we didn't have the budget to mail the records back and record quality diminished.
When they recycled vinyl, when they were a complete pressed record, the label area was punched out. Sometimes like records which are off-center, the punches are also off-center so pieces of label get into the mix and those are easily seen. I can't tell you how many records I've seen with pieces of label in the vinyl.
Interesting. Thanks for sharing
Never had this problem, I always clean my new vinyl on my vacuum record cleaning machine place in anti static inner sleeves before playing apart from physical imperfections the rest of pops and clicks are static.
I have a copy of “Low” by David Bowie not a single pop or click and this is one of the first issues just the hint of vinyl roar which the noise of the vinyl 😃
Within a 3 or 4 year period a while ago I got at least 3 new records I can remember which had side A pressed on both sides. Just how do these kinds of issues get through? I gave up during the pandemic when shopping then here was taking minimum 5 months and since then postage prices have just gotten out of control.
Haha! That one is a joke (side A on both sides... that's pure incompetence for sure). My failure rate on purchases has dropped in recent years, but this one was a particularly bad example - just had to show it
IVE HAD AND GOT THESE ON A FEW ALBUMS OVERALL ID SAY THE CRACKLE POP SCENARIO IS AROUND 25 PERCENT.
WARPS IN ALBUMS ARE MUCH HIGHER AND LIKELY IN MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE SOMETHING DOES SERIOUSLY NEED TO BE DONE BY THE PRESSING INDUSTRY. QUALITY CONTROL REALLY NEEDS TO STEP IT UP I SENT ONE PARTICULAR ALBUM BACK SEVERAL TIMES MUST OF BEEN A FULL BATCH AND THE BEST IRONIC WORST WARPED ONE I HAVE WHICH BECAME FREE TO ME DURING THE PLANDEMIC WAS A ALBUM WITH THE TITLE QUALITY CONTROL 😂BY JURRASIC 5.
IVE CUT MY BUYING RATE HUGELY DUE TO THIS APPALLING TYPE OF WANNA BE EXPENSIVE QUALITY VERY ANNOYING FRUSTRATING SCENARIO
The reasons you gave for these “bubbles” are not the reasons these happen. It is usually because of air or dirt in the vinyl puck when it’s pressed. It is rarely ever something that is happening through out the whole pressing run.
I have found surprisingly that the ones I have they rarely are audible but it certainly can happen.
Coloured vinyl I stay clear of. The black copies of new pressed albums I have generally found ok to great.
I am returning a copy of Fenne Lily, Big Picture in ultramarine blue. Crackling from beginning to end of album. Cleaned my stylus,checked setup, played another album to check before playing it again. Even worse than first listening and realized this is my last ever purchase of a colored vinyl! As I buy one or two vinyls every month from my very knowledgeable independent shop I got really good service and will get a credit note. I use Qobuz most of the time and just buy the stuff I really enjoy.
What makes you think it the colour of the vinyl that's the problem? Can't it just be that it was a poor pressing? These arguments of coloured vinyl being bad has inspired me to play my 1986 blue copy of Metallica's Creeping Death and compare that to the black version on the Ride The Lightning album. No difference, both sound great.
Why not just write customer service for a replacement, rather than placing a whole new order and then writing to CS for a return/refund on the first copy? That only makes it so you now have two charges on your card for a while for no reason. In my experience many online stores will just send out a free replacement and let you keep the original copy too because they have no use for an opened, defective record so they don’t want to pay return shipping plus the cost of sending a free replacement… some do still require the original to be returned but either way, who cares, it’s still better than placing an entirely new order and then having to write in to do a guaranteed return for the original.
Partly to show as a demonstration for video, but also because the first retailer took a week to ship it due to an error, so I figured it was just quicker to buy elsewhere.
I suspect they will give me a pre-paid label for a return, but we'll see what they say.
Happy listening :)
I sold off my vinyl collection just over a year ago. 90% of the reason I sold was due to a cross country move and I didn't want to move the whole collection. Having said that, I had just over 1500 LPs but has slowed WAY down on my buying for 2 reasons. First and foremost, the pricing versus value ratio was getting out of whack for me. In addition to that, the overall quality control was dropping to a level I wasn't comfortable with any longer.
Everyone suddenly wants vinyl again. Therefore, quality control is neglected. As always, it's about money. Colored vinyl is not always a good choice. RSD releases are also affected. The shabby protective sleeves and faulty covers are also to blame. Not to mention the bad sound and all the background noise. For a year now we have only been buying original first pressings and we do without new vinyl to 95%. A limited edition doesn't make sense either when pressing, warped vinyl, colored vinyl and loudness wars ruin everything. No one needs that crap! You can´t made a diamond from a brick.
It's a heat and pressure issue, by the time the plastic has reached the edge of the stamper it has cooled and the pressure applied per square inch by the stamper has reduced with the expanding area of moving plastic.
My issue with modern vinyl is a mastering one: why must we have the tops cranked up into dog-whistle territory? T3 is a limit not a target....
That one’s a shocker, I’ve bought about 140 records this year, returned 4 including one at £150. I have maybe 20 others with minor imperfections . Blue Note are about 60 of these and flawless. The Degritter can remove some of them, but it’s a lottery. The sad part is the record shop carries the loss, no returns allowed, so no incentive to ever up the quality control in the pressing plant.
Hey Keith. Nice to see you comment here. It really shouldn't come down to the retailer... that's plain wrong for sure. 4/140 doesn't seem too bad.
My failure rate had been dropping in recent years (until this shocker). There was a time when it felt like every new record I bought had those little bubbles or dips on the surface. I've never come across a 60s record with this issue. 70s yes - 80s, most definitely.
Returns are allowed from retailers to distributors if the record is defective. The "no returns" vinyl policy is for unsold product. Unsold CDs can be returned for full value, but unsold vinyl cannot. Defective records can be swapped without trouble.
@@trev3971 interesting, I was told different, in fact they viewed an image of the fault and said just to bin it because they wouldn’t get any credit from the distributor, I’m going to follow up with my main supplier and see what he says.
I had early problems with this fault in the 70s with phonogram ,pressed at Walthamstow east London & rca pressed in Washington in the north east of England .
record club albums
I used to buy them but with the record grinder I played them on I couldn't hear it - also I didn't know any better.
I have purchased many Third Man records and have multiple issues with these pressings. Things like dimples where it looks like the vinyl did not seat, or fully fill the cavity of the record press.
Never had this problem, but i use the smaler shiny record😂 holy hell that vinyl looks like its been shot at by a 12g, were talking quality control on the budget here🎉
Haha! yea, it does look like it's been shot in places. Smaller shiny record - haha!
The white bubbles album special edition :-)
Haha! 😂🎶🎧
That's a shame. Happily though, my copy plays fine -- so I assume that the flaws are not consistent through the pressing of the whole batch.
As far as other copies go, because I do a lot of record reviews for a couple of websites, I've seen a couple of spetacularly flawed records but, oddly, the greatest problem I've seen to date seems to come consistently on one color of vinyl. I'm not sure why, but every record I've received which is pressed on blaze orange vinyl is unplayable. I'm not sure why that's true or why it matters, but it seems to.
Thanks Bill. Yea, the second copy I picked up plays just fine and sounds great, thankfully. Luck of the draw on this one.
Speaking to a pressing plant once, the melting characteristics do seem to vary from one batch of PVC to another. This increases the risk of issues when using multiple colours together. (Or something like that)…
More info in this interview: www.yoursoundmatters.com/does-colored-vinyl-sound-worse-than-black-vinyl/
I purchased the original pressing when it first came out. No flaws with it. Great clean pressing.
Nice. Keep hold of that one :)
How have you found Third Man's pressings to be overall? I only have the Sleep boxset and it doesn't sound super great and one of the records is a bit warped. Probably luck of the draw but I've heard similar stories about other TM pressings.
Touch and go. Some great, others not so much. Wish I could say otherwise.
I found lazaretto, for example, noisier on side B than side A. Not sure if I’m alone in that?
The copy of this record without the bubbles and dimples, though, sounds fantastic to me!
that may be the additive package mixed in with the resin at the pellet processing plant coming out of suspension. Have you tried an US cleaning or deep cleaning method on it to see if you can shift it?
You may be able to get a better image of the suspected area with a USB microscope.
Seriously, what do you guys expect? These newer albums are mass produced by machine the junk as far as I'm concerned and I'm a guy who grew up with 45s and LPs pops and clicks we dealt with but I think if you guys want a pure recording of something you got to go digital. Like I said I'm in my '70s and to me all this collecting of records is just a way for the record companies that make money. You want purity and sound and whatever. Just look for the digital or stream. It sounds better than the original guys. Trust me I've tried it. And I know you guys are going to probably hate me for this but it is what it is. The equipment today is not what we had and the good old days and the recordings today are just gimmicks. Picture discs everybody knows that if you buy a picture disc the vinyl's not going to be pure. Stop wasting your money. It's all scam.
I've been a dedicated vinyl record collector for 50+ years now and today's 180g vinyl is no better than 1970's (or whenever) 120g vinyl. The difference in weight makes no different to the quality of the recording. Nearly 25% of new 180g pressings are warped or have issues and sometimes it impossible to remove the warp. No such issues with 120g vinyl. Its a myth that 180g or above vinyl is better, and you can get audiophile quality pressings on 120g vinyl. It's all a marketing ploy to suck you in.
Bought two of the Fleetwood Mac RSD red 45 speed of Albatross and both are noisy and snapping and popping. Very disappointed
Such a shame. I was considering that as one of the few RSD releases I fancied actually. Sorry to hear that
Most vintage copies of the Elvis Album Moody Blue (blue vinyl) have this issue. Imo stick with black vinyl😊
I always thought it was caused by them rushing the cooling process packaging the records while they are still warm off the press can cause all kinds of flaws warps strange spots dimples bubbles scratches fingerprint oils that have worked their way into the vinyl paper and dust that cant be cleaned out it all boils down to a rush job
Send it back as I do and don’t accept inferior products at a premium price point it’s totally unacceptable, would you not complain and ask for a replacement if your new car had imperfections in its paint dimples on it
I'm sticking with magnetic. One day I'll have a top end microline at cart. Redm2 for now.
I think, the people who kills the vinyl renessaince, are the ones who try to get much money and are careless. A cheap 20 hits compilation may have a frequency response about 80 to 12,000 Hz, may have more background noise, but they never dared to sell a brand new record with clicks and pops.
LOL i have given up on buying new vinyl a few years ago. Not only because i simply cannot justify the price gouge for these (yeah no way do i pay 30+ bucks for a single darn vinyl) but especially because of the often horrible masters they used. With noise and pops and clicks ALREADY in the freshly pressed disc and in the audio signal because of dirty lacquer masters. These corporations can sit on their overpriced crap.
About 50% if not more of modern pressed records are bought for decoration purposes only and never see a turntable. So why bother with stringent quality control?
Sent it back mate it is the vinyl, not the pressing.
Second copy sounds great! Luck of the draw on this one. Not that it should be that way!
It’s vinyl if you can’t handle the imperfections you should be buying CDs or streaming.. this is why vinyl died the first time around
The vinyl folks talk about a time when vinyl was "better". Well, maybe in the 1960's, prior to the first oil embargo. After that, vinyl turned to shit with very noisy surfaces due to using recycled vinyl. QC also was pretty lousy, with off center holes, warps, etc. You're right...vinyl is simply a flawed medium, and you have to expect some imperfections.
No, vinyl didn’t nearly die “first time around” because of inferior pressings. This is a new issue with new pressings. I grew up in the 70s and I don’t remember this being an issue at all. Back then if you found a faulty record it had probably been stored in a warehouse without AC and the vinyl warped. Even colored vinyl sounded great. I still have originals, both single and album, of Grand Funk’s ‘We’re An American Band’ on clear yellow vinyl and they sound superb! They always did. The album sat in a closet for a quarter century and the color started changing, but it still sounds flawless today.
I think what’s happening now is precisely because vinyl almost died, as you said “the first time around”, and all the pressing plants were shut down. Nobody makes the pressing equipment anymore, and there probably aren’t enough skilled technicians to keep the extant equipment running flawlessly. When problems come up today it’s bound to be much more difficult to solve them than it would have been forty years ago.
I’m not an expert, but I wonder if a top-of-the-line 3d printer could be customized to produce high-quality vinyl records, and if so what types of quality control issues might crop up? It would be a more modern way to do it, and there’s plenty of experts available to address technical problems, but I have no idea it it would be practical.
@@johnstone7697 You’re not wrong, but high-quality vinyl was available after the oil embargo; I know because I was a collector and a deejay. Most LPs continued to be produced with the same vinyl, but for a few years RCA tested something they called Dynaflex, which was cheaper to produce because it used less oil on the formulation and the records were thinner. They were more difficult to break, which was used as a selling point, but they were not as durable under the typical styluses and ceramic cartridges that most people used. Dynaflex didn’t last long, maybe because of these consumer issues, but these issues didn’t even exist for radio stations and serious collectors, who knew not to use ceramic cartridges. I have several Dynaflex records, including Waylon & Willie’s ‘Outlaws’ album and Lou Reed’s ‘Rock and Roll Animals’ and they sound fantastic!
What really changed after the embargo was 7” singles, but only in North America. Polystyrene was used in the formulation, and the records were molded rather than pressed. This made them - again - more vulnerable under cheaper cartridges and styluses, but even on top-of-the-line equipment they were a problem for deejays, because in order to cue the record you had to spin it backward just at the start, and on styrene this could create a scratchy sound that would get worse over time (deejays called it a “cue burn”). However, it was a minor problem for some of us who managed to keep our tonearm counterbalances set light enough that cue burns weren’t likely. I have about 500 7” singles in my collection, probably a third of them are styrene, and they sound excellent. I have had to replace a few, though, so I’m not saying this isn’t a problem at all.
EDIT: I wanted to add just a bit more to my comment about styrene 7” singles, because I want to point out that indirectly they had a good impact. When they were first introduced, they were as I said a problem for deejays. It was before my time, but I was told that deejays, like consumers, had always kept a heavier tonearm on their records, which helped ensure that a record with a slight scratch wouldn’t skip. However, with styrene this created the kind of scratch that usually doesn’t skip, it just ruins the sound quality. It sounds like all the music is there, but somebody’s sitting between the speakers scratching a chalkboard with their fingernails, at random.
Over time, people learned that styrene records could sound just as excellent as anything else IF you lighten the tonearm and use a better cartridge and stylus. And this in turn led audio manufacturers to produce better quality styluses, the kinds of styluses that would have worn down very quickly under typical tonearm weights in the 1960s. As I said before, I have a lot of great-sounding styrene records, and I used to play many of them on the air or in clubs, and they still sound superb.
So even though these problems were real, we’d worked our way around them long before digital formats were commonly available.
I have yet to hear a good sounding coloured vinyl record. I never waste my money on novelties.
All vinyl starts life transparent, making black just another colour.
@@robturner3065 its true that it starts clear but making vinyl records in a cost effective way requires the addition of carbon. The carbon is added as a stabilizer to extend the life of the vinyl. UHQR’s by Analogue Productions, for example, use special vinyl without adding carbon that is very expensive to produce.
Wow, you must be really unlucky. I have loads of great sounding picture disks and coloured vinyls
@@dawnrazor it depends on your system. My system is dedicated to analogue and is worth over 35k. I’ve yet to hear a single novelty disc sound as good as decent black vinyl. They aren’t even made with the intent of achieving hifi listening, they are marketed as “collection” items.
@@johnmason6213 ok then, maybe for people with a turntable better than a Technics SL 1200 Mk 2 - I’ll have to take your word for that - but for those of us with a high-quality Technics deck, or less, colored vinyl is just fine. For a deejay, a color-vinyl LP might be a bit more troublesome because it can be harder to see the tracking, but there isn’t a sound difference, even in a large club environment.
The thing that is pure novelty is the picture-disc. The groves are much shallower than conventional discs.
This is not imperfection! This is pure garbage! I don't spend money for overpriced garbage! I'm done with vinyl!
I'm surprised you're actually taking color and picture vinyls seriously. They are meant to be a niche product for non HiFi market. Don't buy that crap.
Don't mix things up; a colored vinyl can sound as good as a black one! But picture discs are basically flexi discs with a paper picture under them !
I don't buy many picture discs. Great display items though. Colored vinyl I find sounds just as good in most cases these days.
@@soundmatters I half-ish take it back, i do remember a Bob Marley colored vinyl great pressing the sound is impecable.
@@lucalone Its a big guess when it comes to colored. Not all sound great.
Quality control in studios and pressing plants is abysmal.
Nothing else explains why so many pressings have sub-par sound quality.
That bubbles are not caught in quality control checks, is evidence of just how bad quality control is.
When you find a record with great sound quality, sadly, it is a fluke. It is an exception. It is like a blind squirrel occasionally finding a nut.
They get away with it, because the public does not care. Most people hear the melody, and care little about the sound quality. Most people do not even realize that a different pressing of the exact same album can sound better (or worse). The record plays, and they are happy.
If people returned all of the lousy sounding pressings, record companies would be forced to take quality control seriously. Customers do not care, and so the record companies do not care.
I cannot think of any other industry where they could get away with such poor quality control.
Imagine if you were shopping for a Toyota Corolla, and countless ones drove poorly, and you were lucky if you found one that ran quietly, did not pull to one side, did not squeal, had good brakes, did not vibrate, etc. Toyota would be grilled over it. But with records, people just do not care. And now we have bubbles, and I bet most people still do not care.
If having bubbles in records translates to savings, by using a cheaper vinyl formulation, then record companies will happily keep using that cheap vinyl and happily not care about the bubbles.
By the way, heavy vinyl is pure marketing BS. Yes, heavy vinyl feels good in your hands. It has zero bearing on how the record will sound (and involves tinkering with your vertical tracking alignment, to compensate for its thickness, if you really want to hear it at its best). All of my best sounding pressings are ordinary weight. I will never spend an extra nickle for a heavy version. In fact, due to nearly no heavy pressings ever having great sound quality, I would probably avoid them even if they were ¼ the price. I do not need a heavy disk that I will ignore, due to its sub-par sound quality. Whatever sounds the best is what I purchase -- and that is standard weight vinyl.
That looks exactly like the issue I had with a colored vinyl issue of Paul McCartney and Wings Venus and Mars. That very cool red and yellow split vinyl. It was right in the first tacks, pretty much right where the two colors met also. My first copy was horrible, and I did find a few areas on the b-side also. I got a second copy from the retailer and it had the same issue. I didn’t ask for a third copy as I figured it was an issue with the batch they had. I ended up finding a copy a little later from a different retailer and that copy was perfect.
The major fault with vinyl is it’s prone to things like this when quality control are not over seeing everything from production manufacturing and final dispatch to the retailer and onto the customer, the answer for me is I don’t buy vinyl anymore it’s a rip off, it’s very expensive for what it is and the CD IS THE BEST FORMAT EVER 👍😀👍
The problem with CD is that you better make sure you have a good DAC (most mass produced ones generally aren't). I find that the DAC in my CD player is significantly lower quality than the sound I get out of my turntable (disregarding the contact sound of vinyl, which is a non entity anyway on louder music, with less quiet sections). This is the reason I gave up on CD and went back to Vinyl.) We just need the pressing plants to up their game and get with the program. Poor quality and price gouging are the reasons why I can understand why some people give up in vinyl which is a real shame. For now, I'm just about hanging in there, I'm just glad a do I have vast-ish collection of great vinyl to see me thru.
My favorite one is a literal bug pressed into my copy of Janelle Monae's Archandroid album. Doesn't hurt the playback as much as you'd think.
Goodness me! That is a different one. Ironic considering shellac records are literally beetle resin
@@soundmatters sounds like one tried to escape then!
Was it Beatles song?
@@ArtbyJoeH 😂
Any coloured vinyl is a problem and I never buy coloured now. The only one I have is a clear London Grammar, bubbles in the pressing and surface noise, I only play the CD now. One track is recorded as an LP with LP surface noise added to the track 🙄🙄🙄why!
The industry dug its own grave when quantity became more important then quality. I gave up buying brand new for close to a decade now. It all comes down to what the store policy is with returning defective vinyl. If i can exchange it right then and there, then thats fine. If its gonna take 2 to 4 weeks for a replacement copy, then I'm not gonna bother either. And you don't want to find out they don't take back defects, then why is the store risking the lost in sales? I don't get it. Not all pressing plants are like this. But some are worst then others. Safest thing is to wait for the reviews. Because just imagine spending $500 on some big box set, just to find out that 4 of the 15 albums inside have these dimples, bubbles, off centered holes and labels, poorly trimmed edges, fingerprints, worn out grooves (that shine like a diamond when you move them around in the light) so heres a few you may want to avoid.
Jon Wayne - Texas Funeral...speaking of TMR. This one is off centered on side 2.
Bratmobile - Pottymouth...After i informed KRS about the big dimple on the pink pressing. Turns out they had boxes full of defective pressings. This is thanks to Rainbow Pressing (which is one of the worst ones)
AC/DC - All of the current 180 gram albums. Okay, just guessing all of them. I believe it was United who screwed these up. I forget which one had the handprint in it. Like it was taking off the press by hand, and was just warm enough to have a chemical reaction with maybe gloves, but it was obviously done when warm. Cause how else did it get there? But there was these bubbles and dimples. And just scuffed up surfaces. So watch out. I only owned the Bon Scott albums, and not one of them was mint out of the packaging. My guess is they will all be defective. Again, quantity over quality.
Anything on Plain Recordings. Seriously, just put it back down and walk away. Even if it looks mint. Goid chance it won't sound mint. Ive heard its a 50/50 crap shoot. My luck sucked when it came to them, so why bother in the first place?
Thurston Moore - Psychic Thoughts...now this may have been a 1 off. But did anyone else end up with a copy with a chunk of excess vinyl on the second records edge? I found this out after a 3 hour drive back home.
Frank Zappa - Uncle Meat...yeah, it turns out that even Pallis/Furnace has a bad day. Side 1 has that worn out diamond groove thing. Even if you happened to not notice it. Your ears will hear it. This seems to be the rarest case. I only seen this type of pressing error once before in the early to mid 90s when it happened to a copy of Bedtime For Democracy by The Dead Kennedys. Not sure how it happens, but im leaning towards a worn out stamper? And as for a company like Pallis to do this is beyond me. Must've got by QC somehow, as all the other brand new Zappa albums have been flawless.
These QC issues arent new. As i have seen some weird ones over the years. Improperly trimmed 45s like the chunk on Legs by ZZ Top. Off centered Dark Side Of The Moons (look at the center hole, and you may see where they missed. Oh this is for Canadian pressings from sometime before 1978. As the receipt was still inside the cover. Blown out chips on the edges, like the brand new sealed copy of Einstein On The Beach by Philip Glass i paid way too much for an original French pressing on Tomato, on side 5&6. On the bright side. Its just enough to miss the needle on auto cue, thankfully.
And then theres the mysterious cases of double albums with double copies of just the single album. Like a brand spanking new late 70s copy of More American Graffiti. I would be fine if they messed up the lables on both records. But not when you get 2 copies of the same records.
Quality control isnt a new thing. But i really think its more extended automation isnt helping. Its like some pressing plants just want to crank out as much as they can and get them out the door.
Oh! How could i forget this one.
Ever open a brand new album and there is a straight line from the edge, that goes towards the label, on just one side? My theory is that its from the giant pin they pile the records on after they get pressed and trimmed. Because, how else did that get there?
Congratulations if you made it this far. Hopefully this will help shed some light into vinyl paranoia. Because i cant even tell you what the last brand new record i bought was. Because its been years.
I go by info on the packaging now. Because you know Acoustic Sounds would never have this problem. And that Pallis thing may have very well been a one time only thing they missed. And i never had an issue with any of the Beatles or Pink Floyd reissues. Maybe they are too big of a name to have defective products out there.
So to wrap up this nonsense.
1. Find out the return policy before buying.
2. Always open the records before leaving the store.
3. Check online reviews before buying.
The edge of the disc doesn't inspire confidence, either. I can remember many cheap labels having bumps decades ago. I probably still have some.
Sadly QC is a joke, with most if not all pressing plants.
8 out of 10 records have either dimples, schuff marks, scratches, or bubbles on the surface, and they are very audible, even in louder parts in music.
Coloured vinyl seems to have this more than black vinyl, but both are riddled with it.
The prices are so high that it should not happen at all, and with many expensive vinyl records, they inner sleeve is not even lined, and that too adds to the creation of scuff marks.
And the more popular vinyl has become, the more this occurs.
Some artists or bands are supervising their releases and do not, or hardly, gave any issues, like the XTC albums, or King Crimson albums, but most others i know off, oh boy.
Also a big problem is that vinyl has very sharp edges that cut through the edge of the inner skeeve, and often through the outer sleeve too, especially when shipped to the customer, or shipped to record shops.
And sadly nothing seems to change, how much we, rightly, complain about it.
I have been buying vinyl records since the mid 1960's In all those years I had only one bad album (bits of paper embedded in the vinyl) and it was an import from Spain. I guess I never scrutinized every record I bought. It is all about the music anyway.
Yeah I’ve been buying since the mid 80’s and from memory I never had a bad pressing back in the day. Modern so called audiophile 180g is where the problems appear to have started. The record industry needs to be brought to account for their sloppy standards and their price gouging
In the 80's the clerk of a large surface store let me unsealed a few copies of a record in hope to find one without bits of paper in the vinyl. Unsold records were recycled in new pressing with pieces of the label.
That’s incredible, I have about a 15/20% return to shop, mainly surface noise/damage
I don't think the quality control is as good as it should be most people who but coloured vinyl don't actually play the records it's either an investment or something to impress there friends with. It happens so often with reissues especially coloured vinyl it's cheaply made and mass produced and it's only done to make the record company money. Stop buying new vinyl it's rubbish buy the cd or stream it. If you have to have a vinyl copy to play buy an original sometimes it's only a little more than a reissued version.
All new records are a bloody waste of money
This is becoming a common issue in Vinyl pressing these days in my opinion, coloured vinyl suffers the worst, that is why vinyl has originally been black the best material properties for the job when pressing resulting in black vinyl, but also the popularity and demand I feel may be forcing pressing plants to rush through, so either no quality checking or they over look audio quality......recently Top Gun Maverick sound track on vinyl was released on clear vinyl and sounded absolutley aweful sent 3 copies back, as all had the same issues. Bad copies of Miles Davies Kind of Blue seem to always happen, Columbia original pressing being the execption.
Hopefully we can get better new vinyl pressings soon.
the vinyl revival is a joke. it 's mostly terribly overpriced, poorly pressed records, that all have a digital step in them anyway. Want analog vinyl? it's not the stuff they are pressing now. CD's are better, yeah I said it. Most of you have old crappy 90's CD players which were terrible. Old Pre digital era vinyl is the only way to go with Lp's. not all of them are pressed well either, but the ratio of good pressing to bad pressings was much smaller. get a cd player and a modern DAC, you will pay less per release, most of them will have more music on them, and far fewer defects. yes, there are Cd's that have mastering defects as well, but far , far less.
As an aside, I really dislike clear Vinyl. It's impossible to see imperfections! This is also true of translucent colored vinyl. I don't own an album that is one color for Side A, and another for Side B. I'd imagine that the fancier they get with the process, the more chance there is for errors. I often forgo colored Vinyl for good old black if I can find it.
The quality of vinyl pressings these days have gone drastically backwards I half expect warped vinyl as standard these days
You should look at the prince purple rain picture vinyl. It seems that they all skip on “when doves cry.” There’s an issue with the pressing at the beginning of side 2 on most of them. On my copy, the needle gets stuck in a loop before the song even starts!!
Not trying to defend the labels, but for me Picture Discs aren't for playing, they're decorative. They never have the full sonic experience and always seem plagued by surface noise.
In the case of Jack White, the vinyl quality matches the music quality - he totally blows. People rave about him, and I just don't see anything there. He is a crap composer/songwriter, and he isn't a particularly good guitarist. He makes interesting noises with gear - BFD.
PS - I picked him as most overrated in the poll before I even saw this was the accompanying video.
Video of the poll results to follow on this channel shortly. Happy spinning!
This sort of defect one expected with drugstore compilation LPs from the likes of K-Tel. But on a freshly-minted "audiophile" LP?!
Indeed 😞
I've never noticed this before but i just got an album last week that had quite a few of these. It was a copy of REMs Document, a 2008 pressing
I’ve seen it lees in recent years, but this was a particularly bad example sadly. Second copy I picked up sounds great thankfully 🎶🎧
This Annoying Record Buyer Fault ie. White Stripes records still being enthusiastically purchased even though it is now 2023 NEEDS to stop! -
Great album it is too. Everyone has their own personal taste. Each to their own - live and let live.
@@soundmatters It is not each to their own though, it is the masses obediently consuming whatever the music press tells them is the trendy current thing.
That’s one of the reasons I buy secondhand. 4example in Nürnberg we got some good secondhand recordstores, where the records are accurate inspected according scratches and other issues, before they get in the reselling. You can hear them first before buying. And you also can change records. That’s lovely for me, because who doesn’t bought a record and was very shure that it is missing in your collection and surprise surprise,you have it now twice
Being a Townes Van Zandt fan I was excited to get the Sky Blue release a few years ago. It was bubble city. Bad sound! I cut my losses and threw it out. Thanks a lot Fat Possum Records. Still, the TVZ Fat Possum Record's reissue CD's I bought several years ago sound fantastic.
Shoutout to Trax Records, the label many of the original house music classics appeared on. Their pressings were made from recycled vinyl so it wasn't uncommon to find little pieces of the label from the record's previous incarnation pressed right into the vinyl.
How about those mysterious huge fog stains covering the records. I just posted a video with one on my channel.
@@djflik Some nice Chicago nuggets there.
My pet peeve is when you buy a brand new SEALED vinyl LP, get it home, open it up, put it on the turntable, set it to play . . . . .and then it SKIPS. Does not make any difference if they are black or coloured vinyl, pressed or lathe cut, major label or independent label, large run or
I very rarely buy newly pressed vinyl unless it's pressed by Acoustic Sounds (which typically means a higher price tag). I've noticed issues on almost every other non-audiophile pressed disc. There's just not the same quality control for mass produced vinyl. Lucky for me I'm a jazz nut mostly interested in stuff from the 40s - 60s, so I've got lots of choices for used vinyl pressed in the "golden age" of records.
I think new record pressings are getting worse….my peev is the amount of factory gunk that is left in the grooves. Only a full, wet clean removes it. After a clean it’s fine, but having to deep clean a brand new record is pretty bad! 😮
I have a mint promotional copy of the soundtrack to the first Star Trek movie. Clean as a master tape... except... There is a piece 9f junk pressed into the record that creates an annoying "thump" for about five revolutions on BOTH sides.
The rest of the album is so perfect I just look past it, though. After all, I got the record at an estate sale 15 years ago in a full box of records for which I paid only ten bucks. 😎
I'm collecting music, not vinyl or CDs! Music's what is all about! I rather spend my time in listening to mp3 downloads in best quality than waste time AND money in high overpriced vinyl garbage!
Digital is authentic sound. When people talk about the "Analog Sound", they probably mean they like audio that is compressed and processed, which is fine. It's what us old folks grew up with and got used to! It is definitely easier on the ear.
because vinyl was abandoned for so many years in the name of convenience and progress( read: profits) we are now having to relearn the process , coloured vinyl and especially multi coloured vinyl need a higher biscuit temp and the press itself may need to be run at slightly higher temps in order to get the plastics to fully combine and flow , sometimes this will cumulatively cause bubbling in the plastic , it should be caught at QC but sadly the pressure on the plants which have huge backlogs of work means the QC is not as high as we might want.
add to all this that plants are rebuilding presses which can take a year to set up and get running reliably , then we add in the plastic supply which can be from very humid countries which means water is held in the plastic and when the biscuit is being cooked the water expands into gas and expands into bubbles . then there is the regrind process in which test pressings are ground up and added back to the virgin plastic , even though its usually a small percentage , the regrind can have water in it from a press that had a small leak or even over cooled .
vinyl production was and is a real craft and sometimes it doesnt go so well . yes it sucks to get a bad pressing but we have to make allowances for this while the plants try to get back to relearning a century of experience that was lost during the idiotic CD and digital age which ruined recorded music for a generation in the name of GREED and the dumb masses being told digital was 'better'. happy listening 😘
Frustrating! Something else to look out for! Good video
I have one record with a cigarette butt pressed into it. Not listenable, but a treasure nonetheless.
yah sorry on colored vinyl I really cant tell on your video exactly what you are looking at. I always thought tics were caused by trapped dust or chemical residue. I know often my tics clear up if I used a chemical cleaning on the nitty gritty vac, followed by a clear rinse run through the degritter. That said, the new Foo Fighters arrived today full of tics and pops and surface noise, and a major edge warp on side 2. cleaning did nothing to clean it up. Yeah white vinyl. I still refer black.
Check the still image later in the video, you’ll see it a little clearer there. Difficult to show on a camera for both coloured and black vinyl.
I have the original pressing of Elephant. A lot of them are warped, not flat.
I had a bump which was a piece of cardboard molded in on my pink Altered Images Greatest Hits - piss poor QA checking, simple.
Damn… yea, not great. Congrats on the premiere league promo for Luton, Gary ⚽️🎶
And that’s why I don’t do vinyl
I’ve experienced this with vinyl for as long long as I’ve collected vinyl, which has been since the 80’s. But imperfections do happen, and yes it’s frustrating with the cost of vinyl these days. That’s said, for perspective, in the 80’s when records were $8.99, minimum wage was $3.35/hr, so it still took 2 1/2 hours of work to buy a record.
Thanks David. It seems like it was less common on 60s/70s records, but then again, that might just be my observation. I think the occasional issue is inevitable to a degree, just wish it was less regular than it seems to be. Happy listening 🎶🎧
Well, when one offers premium products, you have some expectations.
We doesn't speak about low budget stuff, but about things, that are pretty expensive.
I was born in 1968, so I experienced the vinyl records, I never saw a record that didn't play or so. There is one exception, but this is a bit complicated to explain.
Vinyl ? Yuck!
Looks like some non-fill issues as well... shame.
Quite possibly. Shame indeed. The second copy I got sounds great though 🎶🎧
dE-pRessIng
This is why I don’t buy any records pressed nowadays. See way too many complaints about imperfections. I began buying records in 1970. And during those years before CDs made them obsolete, I only had to return 2 because of defects out of the hundreds I bought from 1970-1989. Still have and enjoy my vinyl records.
These are called "pit marks" and you get them when unsold records are melted down to make new records. If a pressing advertises "virgin vinyl" you can be assured you won't have this problem. It's always been a thing, especially on k-tel records where they're trying to cut costs as much as possible (though with k-tel specifically you could have other issues such as adding sand to the mixture to get more records out of the same amount of vinyl).
Really? I had no idea that these kinds of shenanigans happened. What, is vinyl not cheap enough as it is, so they have to cut it with other non vinyl material. The mind boggles.
@@dawnrazor To clarify, that sand thing was only used for the cheapest of the cheap records--in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Think Pickwick, K-Tel, Ronco, RCA Camden, etc. These days, it's most likely that the pit marks are just from melting down old unsold records to make new ones. In any case, if it says "virgin vinyl" you can be assured this won't be a problem.
I had the same issue with bubbles on vinyl back in the '70's
OG’s Only!
You could always use the "black marker". Remember that argument?
I’m intrigued, what does that mean?
@@dawnrazor The Electric Recording Company reissued the White Strips 2001 Lp White Blood Cells and messed up one of the outer covers that they sent to Mike Esposito at the Ingroove. They used a black Sharpie to fill it in.
@@DorianPaige00 That's just atrocious
That's why Digital is better // Old habits keep coming back -Vinyl should have Died years ago
No lol Digital music from your streaming services can always be deleted without you knowing.
Rather own the music
@@aaronmartinez5029 Then buy a digital download, or a CD. Most modern vinyl is pressed from digital masters anyway.
@@aaronmartinez5029 quite a lot of music is not making it to streaming and Spotify may just go bankrupt !
If the quality control isn't done, the source isn't good, so digital can't sound good either. Loudness war, glass master defect, etc... You can´t made a diamond from a brick.
@@johnstone7697 Buy a CD put it on your CD player then sit back and relax. Enjoy the analogue sound from your speakers. Yes folks inside a CD player is a convertor which is known as a DAC. This converts digital signals back to analogue signals. A CD player reads a disc digitally but sends out analogue signals to your amplifier. Weird science.