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If I'm going to spend my precious cash on a record, how can I found out whether it is a good pressing?


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Hello,

 

I'm new to this forum. I'm sure many of you will have heard about how records sometimes being mastered from a compressed digital source rather than the original tapes... Put out onto the market as an afterthought. How can I avoid buying records that have been produced in this way? Are there certain record labels that I can trust more than others? Perhaps I should contact the record label in order to find out this information? Could anyone tell me if this form of mastering malpractice is even that common?

 

That's all of my questions asked haha. Thanks for reading this. 

-Dan

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46 minutes ago, Star Cage said:

Hello,

 

I'm new to this forum. I'm sure many of you will have heard about how records sometimes being mastered from a compressed digital source rather than the original tapes... Put out onto the market as an afterthought. How can I avoid buying records that have been produced in this way? Are there certain record labels that I can trust more than others? Perhaps I should contact the record label in order to find out this information? Could anyone tell me if this form of mastering malpractice is even that common?

 

That's all of my questions asked haha. Thanks for reading this. 

-Dan

You just have to do your research, dude. There's no definitive single source on the subject unfortunately, but checking out discogs.com for the specific pressing you're looking at to see what sort of comments people have is a good start. Also just search info about whatever press on your search engine of choice.

What sort of turntable are you playing these on if I can ask? If you don't really plan to upgrade and you're playing it on a garbage TT, it's not really going to matter anyway.

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Yeah, you just have to do some research and depending on the release it could be easy to find the info, hard or nothing even out there so you have to ask yourself if it's worth the gamble or not.

 

Discogs is the single best place without question. For a lot of the rock or blues releases you can find tons of info usually on the stevehoffman forums. Several other sites or forums as well but you have to take it all with a grain of salt if you do not trust the certain posters since they could be using poor equipment, didn't clean the record first etc. Like if you look on Amazon you will see tons of people giving good presses bad ratings because they use horrible equipment so they just blame the record instead. Sometimes there are even several versions of a record that sound great but people prefer the dynamics of one press over another.

 

There are def. certain labels or record plants that are known to do higher quality releases but even then there are usually some here and there that didn't turn out as well. A lot of what you learn will simply come with time and experience. In the beginning just buy some of your favorites to start out with and start exploring around.

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1 hour ago, Star Cage said:

Hello,

 

I'm new to this forum. I'm sure many of you will have heard about how records sometimes being mastered from a compressed digital source rather than the original tapes... Put out onto the market as an afterthought. How can I avoid buying records that have been produced in this way? Are there certain record labels that I can trust more than others? Perhaps I should contact the record label in order to find out this information? Could anyone tell me if this form of mastering malpractice is even that common?

 

That's all of my questions asked haha. Thanks for reading this. 

-Dan

I echo all above.

I'll also add that, unless you yourself can hear a noticeable difference between an album with a digital source and an 'audiophile' all analogue etc etc album, I wouldn't stress and worry about those designations. It's possible that your set up and/or your own ear and preference will not notice enough difference to justify fretting over it. I've heard pressings that others have labeled as "unlistenable" or "terrible!" and they sounded fine/average to me. Very rarely have I heard an album that was pressed so poorly that it was actually unlistenable on my system which is a practical low/medium end setup.

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Thank you for all of your responses. Haven't had much luck finding info on pressings through Discogs. Have had some luck with that on Amazon though. I managed to contact the band Feeder about their LP "Generation Freakshow" and was told that the vinyl version was mastered at a lower "level" than the CD. I infer from this that there may have been some reduction in the dynamic range of the digital version.

 

For those who asked, my set-up is an ATLP120 turntable played into a Cambridge Audio Topaz SR10 Stereo Reciever and played out of Dali's Zensor 3 speakers.

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I agree with the comments above. I think the best approach is not to worry about it. Just buy what you want, and if you come across a pressing which sounds bad to you, return it or sell it. The risk really isn't substantial. I share your frustration with the inconsistency in quality between releases. So much of what is available today has clearly been rushed or otherwise compromised by sloppy manufacturing. But every once in a while I do get some near-perfect pressings that really elevate the experience of listening to a particular album, which somehow makes the whole thing worth it, at least for me.

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44 minutes ago, bjorn said:

I agree with the comments above. I think the best approach is not to worry about it. Just buy what you want, and if you come across a pressing which sounds bad to you, return it or sell it. The risk really isn't substantial. I share your frustration with the inconsistency in quality between releases. So much of what is available today has clearly been rushed or otherwise compromised by sloppy manufacturing. But every once in a while I do get some near-perfect pressings that really elevate the experience of listening to a particular album, which somehow makes the whole thing worth it, at least for me.

This is my favourite comment. I think I should have this attitude. Cheers

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