Today me and the mrs went on a vinyl splurge. All brand new and sealed. Got home and vetted them as ive learnt i have to do...
3 were factory damaged and one had a flaw in the vinyl where it looked as though there was a fold in the vinyl where it hadnt squashed cleanly during the pressing.
So that was 4 out of 14 records that were duff.
I would expect them at £15 to £22 a pop to be flawless. IE, pressed properly, flat and not scratched.
Ive also had a take a couple others back that were either factory scratched or dished severely so even a clamp cant sort it because its not across the middle.
I think quite a few of these faults are caused by careless handling putting them into the sleeves.
Whats other people experience?
3 were factory damaged and one had a flaw in the vinyl where it looked as though there was a fold in the vinyl where it hadnt squashed cleanly during the pressing.
So that was 4 out of 14 records that were duff.
I would expect them at £15 to £22 a pop to be flawless. IE, pressed properly, flat and not scratched.
Ive also had a take a couple others back that were either factory scratched or dished severely so even a clamp cant sort it because its not across the middle.
I think quite a few of these faults are caused by careless handling putting them into the sleeves.
Whats other people experience?
Lol, I hear what you're saying. I have to say that the well pressed records do sound fab though. I've still got a new tonearm to put on and finish building my new phone stage but even with the current tonearm and cheapish standalone phono amp it's giving my digital setup a run for its money and in some ways beats it. And my new cartridge isn't broken in yet either.
Oh I have lots of well pressed records, from the 50s. 60s. 70s and 80s. Fewer from the 90s and only one this century. 95% of these expensive new releases are digitally sourced so IMO no point getting the vinyl. Plus the floor can't take any more records in current house 
(oh and some real cr*p audiophile direct to disks that are not worth listening to even once despite the sound quality. I was foolish in my youth)
(oh and some real cr*p audiophile direct to disks that are not worth listening to even once despite the sound quality. I was foolish in my youth)
The last album I purchased was Hotel California.
The sound from an analogue recording is as it sounds to your ears with all the harmonics to give the sound feeling at the performance.
Digitally recorded singles are of no value because the signal is stripped of harmonics, pratted about with in the studio and in the processing Sgt. Pepper on CD is absolutely the pits. Nothing like the original on vinyl. I prefer to listen to analogue as my ears are logarithmic to sensitivity as analogue records are.
I still have 4200 singles and 300ish albums, some are in Sq.
Always store them vertically to avoid warping.
The sound from an analogue recording is as it sounds to your ears with all the harmonics to give the sound feeling at the performance.
Digitally recorded singles are of no value because the signal is stripped of harmonics, pratted about with in the studio and in the processing Sgt. Pepper on CD is absolutely the pits. Nothing like the original on vinyl. I prefer to listen to analogue as my ears are logarithmic to sensitivity as analogue records are.
I still have 4200 singles and 300ish albums, some are in Sq.
Always store them vertically to avoid warping.
i get the digital vs analogue recording process, and yes, a cd to vinyl transfer is pointless. I would possibly argue that a project recorded start to finish in 24/96 or higher would have the potential to sound better on vinyl than on CD (16/44 not SACD obviously) provided that its converted at the higher rate and not dithered/truncated down to 16/44 in between and not overly compressed during the mastering stage.
However, really the question for this thread was about the regularity of pressing faults on new discs. Ive got a lot (a fair few anyway ~800) of old records and i dont think Ive ever seen faults like where the vinyl hasnt pressed into the mould correctly rather than the merits of the format.
I always store vertically!
But still, it seems odd that a double album could have one disc perfectly flat and the other dished from new.
However, really the question for this thread was about the regularity of pressing faults on new discs. Ive got a lot (a fair few anyway ~800) of old records and i dont think Ive ever seen faults like where the vinyl hasnt pressed into the mould correctly rather than the merits of the format.
I always store vertically!
But still, it seems odd that a double album could have one disc perfectly flat and the other dished from new.
Would a high resolution (Greater then red book Audio CD specification) digital recording pressed on vinyl have any advantage over normal audio CD ? I bought a digitally recorded Bollywood vinyl on which volume levels were very very low. Don't know why ? Also some stereo effects were monoed which was expected.
Regards.
Regards.
I think as theres so many possible stages for destroying the fidelity of the recording its wrong to say that a high res recording pressed to vinyl 'would' sound better. My view is that it has the potential to sound better.
If we take the example of a redbook cd transferred to vinyl. In an ideal world the best result possible would be that the record sounded as good.
In reality this wouldnt be the case as extra cabling, converters, RIAA equalisers, inherent noise/flaws of the record cutting and playback system etc could only distort it further.
If you have a high res recording that has been mastered well then you would have a 2 fold advantage.
Increasing the bit depth would improve the representation of the bass frequencies. Im assuming that vinyl dynamic range is essentially fixed so the extra bit depth doesnt really translate to increased dynmic range on a record, rather that low frequency notes have less quantisation error associated with them so appear smoother/closer to the original analogue when converted back to analogue.
Increasing the sample rate would increase the fidelity for upper frequencies. Again this ones open to debate. According to nyquist the highest freq on a standard CD is 22050hz. Well beyond most human hearing.
As you approach these higher frequency you can start to aliasing effects etc. I think thats why oversampling and a digital filter is used. I spent a while playing around with NOS on an arcam alpha 5 using the philips tda1541a and was amazed at how well the oversampling filled in the gaps and reconstructed test signals much better than running NOS. (Have a look at a 10khz sine wave NOS vs oversampled on a scope)
However, i did seem to prefer the NOS sound with music.
I would think though that having more sample points can only be a good thing (although i think you do get an increased noise floor).
Going back to nyquist and all that...
A cd player can represent a pretty good square wave. Ok, the rise time is limited to the sample frequency but if you did (i think you would use this) a fourier transform on the square wave output from a cd player, i would think that you would have to sum harmonics way beyond the nyquist limit of the cd player to represent the waveform accurately. So can a cd player represent higher frequencies than 22050hz? sort of? Well, i would say no in any controllable way.
To go back to the high res digital to vinyl. Sampling a master tape at 24/96 or beyond, if done well, surely must preserve more information compared to sampling at 16/44 to press to cd.
If we take the example of a redbook cd transferred to vinyl. In an ideal world the best result possible would be that the record sounded as good.
In reality this wouldnt be the case as extra cabling, converters, RIAA equalisers, inherent noise/flaws of the record cutting and playback system etc could only distort it further.
If you have a high res recording that has been mastered well then you would have a 2 fold advantage.
Increasing the bit depth would improve the representation of the bass frequencies. Im assuming that vinyl dynamic range is essentially fixed so the extra bit depth doesnt really translate to increased dynmic range on a record, rather that low frequency notes have less quantisation error associated with them so appear smoother/closer to the original analogue when converted back to analogue.
Increasing the sample rate would increase the fidelity for upper frequencies. Again this ones open to debate. According to nyquist the highest freq on a standard CD is 22050hz. Well beyond most human hearing.
As you approach these higher frequency you can start to aliasing effects etc. I think thats why oversampling and a digital filter is used. I spent a while playing around with NOS on an arcam alpha 5 using the philips tda1541a and was amazed at how well the oversampling filled in the gaps and reconstructed test signals much better than running NOS. (Have a look at a 10khz sine wave NOS vs oversampled on a scope)
However, i did seem to prefer the NOS sound with music.
I would think though that having more sample points can only be a good thing (although i think you do get an increased noise floor).
Going back to nyquist and all that...
A cd player can represent a pretty good square wave. Ok, the rise time is limited to the sample frequency but if you did (i think you would use this) a fourier transform on the square wave output from a cd player, i would think that you would have to sum harmonics way beyond the nyquist limit of the cd player to represent the waveform accurately. So can a cd player represent higher frequencies than 22050hz? sort of? Well, i would say no in any controllable way.
To go back to the high res digital to vinyl. Sampling a master tape at 24/96 or beyond, if done well, surely must preserve more information compared to sampling at 16/44 to press to cd.
As sure as i can be that they were factory sealed. I doubt that hmv, sainsburys or my local vinyl specialist dealer would bother sealing them and putting the advertising stickers on them if they didnt come like that.
I appreciate that warps could be the dealer but in the case of the double albums where just one has a serious dish (not even across the middle, a 'minor segment' lipped up) on it you would think that there would be at least some indication on the sleeve.
im guessing that the usb market has something to answer to but also I suspect the vinyl factories are so few and far between that they are also struggling to meet demand so things are getting a bit rushed and QC is suffering.
Just wondered if i was particularly unlucky or if anyone else who had bought a few slabs of newly pressed vinyl were finding this sort of thing.
I appreciate that warps could be the dealer but in the case of the double albums where just one has a serious dish (not even across the middle, a 'minor segment' lipped up) on it you would think that there would be at least some indication on the sleeve.
im guessing that the usb market has something to answer to but also I suspect the vinyl factories are so few and far between that they are also struggling to meet demand so things are getting a bit rushed and QC is suffering.
Just wondered if i was particularly unlucky or if anyone else who had bought a few slabs of newly pressed vinyl were finding this sort of thing.
Thanks very much for the explanation. I may be wrong but I think the intermediate steps of pressing vinyl ruins the fidelity. I am in printing profession; a decade back in printing we used to make positive film then metal plate etching and then sent for printing. These days one can directly make plates for printing. The difference in quality is pretty good by just removing one step.
A high resolution digital file with digital RIAA equalisation sent to direct metal mastering will preserve fidelity i guess. Otherwise no meaning in getting digitally recorded vinyls. So much research in plastic materials. I wonder if that can be improved too.
Best Regards.
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