It was mentioned to me over the phone speaking with Kevin at KAB, that vinyl pre 80s and before was the best in terms of quality at the pressing level. Back then he said, the pressing machines were run 24 hours a day - allowing for more consistent production runs resulting in much higher quality pressings. These days pressings are an 'event' and every time they start from scratch.
When demand for records deteriorated from CD sales, demand went down, volume of productions went down, thus quality went down.
I remember when I started buying records in 1978, my own rather than my father's collection. Records were around 7 dollars, as a kid with a part time job, I always managed to save for a weekly addition to my collection. Getting a warped record was very rare, and the record store would always take it back with out question and give me a new one. But that was rare.
When demand for records deteriorated from CD sales, demand went down, volume of productions went down, thus quality went down.
I remember when I started buying records in 1978, my own rather than my father's collection. Records were around 7 dollars, as a kid with a part time job, I always managed to save for a weekly addition to my collection. Getting a warped record was very rare, and the record store would always take it back with out question and give me a new one. But that was rare.