new Allison Krause & Robert Plant Pressing seems noisy

I listened to this LP at a friend's house last week. I was not impressed with the quality of the pressing. 

so mine is dead quiet including the lead in and between songs, at least side one

the dead wax on side one has 

j powell

38!56.!(3)..

1166101372 side A

1166101541

@loomisjohnson , I absolutely agree. I just got the digital download.

@herman , I should have said you should assume all are bad. Not that you should not try to get a better one but, as with my recent experience with Blue Note it can be like pulling teeth. In this case the heater elements were not balanced and all the records came out dished. They kept sending me dished records in spite of my insisting on waiting for the next run. 

Another comment I wish to make about modern records and reissues. I have had somebad reissues. Little Feat's Last Record Album was disgusting. However. modern monitoring and mastering equipment is far more advanced than years back leading to more accurate versions particularly of old rock records. Frank Zappa's early records were all muted but the remasters are terrific. Surrealistic Pillow and Baxters are another example. The record industry was making records for kids with crappy record players as cheaply as possible so they could afford them. They took Jazz and Classical far more seriously. The differences were obvious on my fathers system. I am not sure where this "gotta have original pressings" came from but I don't. If the modern analog version is no good I just download a file if one is available. This Happened with The Cure's Disintegration. After three bad copies I gave up and got the file which is excellent. 

not many spring chicken voices here on AG either, I will settle for Robert in 2021

On the stamper thing....sure a prefect plating job is just one of many steps where things can go awry...there are many more not specific to the stamper.... there is this cool thing called Ishikawa diagram, study it...

good record, but not as good as "raising sand"--material is a bit more uniformly downcast + no amount of studio craft can obscure the fact that plant's voice is wearing out

@herman , The record is noisy because of the conditions it was subject to during it’s manfacture. All the records pressin that run were subject to the exact same conditions. If the stamper was bad, all the records that come off that stamper (1000) will be just as noisy. If you wait until another run is made you might get a quiet one.

 

that is a bit different than your original post where you said "they would all be like this." If it is the stamper then of course yes, but you did not say that, you said "all" and "the noise is in the stampers" as if all stampers are noisy. I hate to be the grammar police and don’t want to get in a pissing contest, but all I can go on is what you state.

and I disagree that it is definitelvly in the stamper. I bought a record from Acoustic Sounds recently that had a crackling noise throughout. They replaced it and the second record is just fine. While it is possible I got pressings from different stampers, I doubt it since it came from the same seller. Also, they replaced it with no hassle, but told me they had no other complaints or returns of this title. If others got the same noisy record I did I can’t imagine there would not have been more returns.

All that said, I wholeheartedly agree with your last statement about the condition of most current pressings. I have been overwhelmingly pleased with them.

thanks for the feedback

@herman , The record is noisy because of the conditions it was subject to during it's manfacture. All the records pressin that run were subject to the exact same conditions. If the stamper was bad, all the records that come off that stamper (1000) will be just as noisy. If you wait until another run is made you might get a quiet one.

@millercarbon , I politely disagree. I returned a lot more records in the old days than I do now as a percentage. I have had a few really bad ones recently. In the old days I have to say that european classical records were uniformly wonderful. But, popular music when they pressed hundreds of thousands of copies were hit or miss. I must have returned one in five records back then. 

Buying 300 other records says nothing about this one.

do you even take the time to think about what others have posted or just go spouting off with your profound wisdom? I opened with "I can’t speak to this particular record" and you come back paraphrasing what I just said as if it is a revelation.

That aside, the vast majority of records I’ve purchased have been excellent pressings. Anyone reading your post could easily conclude all current pressings are crap. My experience is exactly the opposite.

Cleaning won't help a bad pressing. Buying 300 other records says nothing about this one. Even buying this same record and having it be good won't really tell us anything conclusive. Because with 2 samples one noisy one quiet 50/50 still doesn't tell us which one is the norm. That is why I said you only have to return it one to 5 times to find out. 

The same has always been true, but back in the day there never were any records, at least not that I ever saw, that were as bad as what I have seen today. In the last several years I have seen bits of paper melted into the vinyl, dips so severe they cannot be tracked, noise so uniformly bad it intrudes even when the music is loud, warps so bad even my clamp won't flatten, and on and on. Back in the day we thought a tick or pop was worth a return. By that standard almost nothing today is a keeper. 

I know now someone will tell us how wonderful dead silent flat hot stamper yada yada yada their last 5 million new records were.

Yay! Happy for you.

No, millercarbon is correct, they will all be like this.

 

How do you know that?

I can't speak to this particular record yet, I will have it soon, , but I've purchased at least 300 new records in the past year or so and except for a few have had very little or no noise. I do clean them before I play them so I don't know what they are like before they are cleaned, but I view cleaning all records as an essential part of the process so it really doesn't matter to me what they are like before they are cleaned. 

My lp is on order. Will report back.

Steven Wilsons Remix of Aqualung in 24/96 sounds different. Does it sound better? It's a matter of taste.

@millercarbon , Pressings in the 70's and 80's could just as bad or worse. With Warner, Columbia, RCA, Epic and Capital you could never be sure what you were going to get. Sometimes great, sometimes awful. Today at least you can identify a few companies that you get consistenly decent pressing. In the old days the only pressings you could be sure of were European classical discs and even some of the like DGG startedto suffer. This is what drove people to spend more on MoFi discs. I like vinyl but if I can get a properly mastered 24/96 file I will take it any day. Don't think so? Check out Steven Wilsons Remix of Aqualung in 24/96. If you do not think that sounds better than any prior version you have heard vinyl or otherwise?.....

No, millercarbon is correct, they will all be like this. This was the problem with popular music decades ago. The noise is in the stampers. The company being used to do the pressing has a hygeine problem somewhere along the line. It takes meticulous shop keeping to get through all the processing without intruducing issues that cause noise. 

This is where digital comes into play. I assume you are talking about Raise the Roof. It is available in 24/96 digital. The thing is, This is Rounder Records who usually do an excellent job with their vinyl. I would see if they have a contact line and tell them what you have. See what they will do. I just had it out with Blue Note over a severely defective pressing. They kept sending me the same defective pressing over and over. 4 times in spite of my telling them they had to throw the whole batch away and start over. I gave up. It is like running into a concrete wall.

Bad pressing. Could be it is the stamper in which case virtually all will be like that and no point trying to exchange. Or could be your copy in which case maybe the next one is a lot better. Records being what they are you would only have to send em back one to 5 times to figure it out. And people wonder why I so seldom buy new vinyl.