Simply Vinyl...why the bum rap?

i just spent $60 on two Simply Vinyl reissues of old Burning Spear reggae albums - "Marcus Garvey" and "Sounds from the Buring Spear". both albums are TOTAL pieces of junk.

static, fuzz and distortion from beginning to end. they are both completely unlistenable. total garbage.

i emailed the company and asked them to make good with me, and i never got a response. the name of the game with Simply Vinyl is BUYER BEWARE!!!

My knock is at the price they charge the source material should be the original master. In fact Unless it states the source as being the original master I don't even bother looking at the catalog of said company.

I bought portishead's first album and it sounds great as does the reservoir dog soundtrack. I'm playing it through Krell Evolution components and a VPI HRX so I would definitely know if they were bad recordings.

I have a handful more simpyl vinyl records on the way. I'll post up how they sound.

Simply Vinyl's(SV)recodings are hit and miss. We need to generate a list of the good ones (and the bad.) If we were to purchase the good ones, perhaps SV would see that a good recording from a proper source will be rewarded and will be motivated to do so. While I have heard about a few good LPs of their making, I can say without a doubt all of the SV LPs that I have purchased are compressed and I'd rather listen to the CDs than the Vinyl. That is a strong statement. Best Regards, aaron

i'm with sarah on this one. i bought several "early" simply vinyl lp's at ces a couple or three years ago and they were all much poorer sonically than original issues. moreover, a couple of the lp's were badly pressed with gunk left on em' that couldn't be removed. given this experience i've not bought any of the "later" re-issues. -kelly

I concur :) 'Lost Highway' soudntrack sounds very good on Simply Vinyl.

I bought some of the Simply Vinyl Van Morrison and Bob Dylan when the label first came out, but the records sounded like crap--really compressed and thin. I didn't notice surface noise so much as just bad quality recording. I have stayed clear of the label since then, so I don't know if they've been able to improve. Like you, from what I hear from time to time, I gather not.

I second what Blackie said. Simply Vinyl simply doesn't produce consistently high quality products. All of their low price items were priced so low for a reason -- they suck. On the other hand, the full priced items - e.g. Santana Abraxas and Eagles Hotel California - sounded fairly descent.

As far as I know the main issue is that they don't disclose where they get the source material for their releases. Is it a digital remaster or is it a analog original? The two releases I have, Nick Drake "Pink Moon" and Tom Waits "Swordfishtrombones" sound amazing. Very quiet, clean vinyl with quality packaging. I have heard that some of their releases don't sound as good as the original but have not been able to do any comparisons myself. On the other hand, the $10 Scorpio 180g "Audiophile" releases sound awful. I've tried three because of their price, Miles "Kind of Blue" Brubeck "Time out" and Sade "Diamond Life", and took them all back. Very noisy pressings that sound like someone used a casette copy as the master.