Warped record

return/exchange it.

I just received Crime Of The Century LP through Amazon, mastered for vinyl and cut by Ray Staff at Air Studios,180gr. Not only lots of loud pops and cracks, no visible scratches, but remastering is simply pitiful. Sound level lower by 5dB, yes I measured, flat sound stage, no dynamics. All this comparing to the pressing from eighties. It was supposed to be a gift. Return label printed, dropping it off tomorrow.

I would return it without hesitation.  I am fed up with sellers shipping people open, defective, subpar, used or bad products, such as in your case.  They count on people keeping them to avoid the inconvenience of having to send it back.

Don't let them get away with it!!! 😡😊

Amazon returns are easy.  No need to box them.  Just print scan code and drop off at a UPS store (the inconvenient part).

there are various types of warps, but I would classify them to playable and unplayable.

Bowl-warp is more-likely playable with screw-on clamp only on one "bottom" side. The other side of bawl-warp is going to slide your stylus possibly damaging both vinyl surface and cantilever

If there's warp with creasing, definitely no go.

I've got one of the later pressings of Bill Evans and exchanged this record twice all the time with some degree of warp. 

A playable warp would be the one not going too extreme

@czarivey 

+1 Yes warps come in all magnitudes. All but the smallest will be heard. You should return it. 
 

@ellajeanelle 

Sure… but I would relax. It isn’t a conspiracy. Different errors and knowledge comes from different channels. If you buy from Amazon it will happen a lot… Music Direct less. It is avoidable by going to record stores or using a different media type. But, it comes with vinyl.

ghdprentice

I know it’s no conspiracy! I was intentionally exaggerating my emotions!

It does seem that overall problems with orders happen more often now days than it used to though.

But I do stick to my belief that sellers are often counting on buyers not to return items due to inconvenience, and many don’t return them because of the inconvenience alone, me included.  Sometimes is easier to just throw something away, but I do have a cost limit that will motivate me to inconvenience myself to make a trip to drop something off for return. That limit gets lower with time, perhaps in my humble attempt to get a point across to shady sellers, along with leaving them poor reviews. I wish more people would do the same and perhaps change poor selling practices, even if just a little.

I buy a lot of older pressings, most of the high ticket ones are ok, but some aren't. I "invested" in a Furutech DF-2 flattener (Orb) a decade or so ago. Well worth it to me, though I can see how some people would regard it as an extravagance. Yes, if you got a new record from Amazon, easily returned. 

I bought a sound track from them quite a while ago-- around $40-- arrived from EU very warped. It took quite a few attempts to flatten, starting with the Vinyl Flat (a relatively inexpensive, "manually operated" flattening system) and got it playable with the DF-2. You may ask, wait, why not return to Amazon? It was out of print and the price skyrocketed pretty quickly to $400 for a copy (of uncertain warp condition). 

A lot of what I collected in the past 10 years was from the seventies- a real low point for vinyl quality, especially in the US.

@ghdprentice I forgot to mention warps that flat out once on the platter, but visible from the edge view. Those definitely won't compromise any playback. 

@ellajeanelle , Amazon makes it really easy to return items. Records warp if you look at them funny. If you don't like warps don't buy records. All warps ar audible in the form of wandering pitch. A good arm will follow any warp. Don't like warps? Get a turntable with vacuum clamping. Only the warps that won't seal are returned. Every record is as flat as a billiard table and as thick as the platter. 

@whart I almost bought the Orb, but since I've owned a turntable with vacuum clamping I've had only three records that would not seal and it is way more cost effective to return them. I also think I've run out of space. I suffer from TMS (too much sh-t)

Amazon returns can be dropped off at any Whole Foods outlet. They’re more common than UPS depots.

mijostyn: I don't know what that was all about.  I don't buy records.

Bought a record from a record store 6 months ago. It was IMO warped badly. Stylus would move up over 1/8th in every spin. Record guy tried to tell me it was normal and he wouldn’t take it back. I honestly couldn’t hear an effect from it but obviously in my mind it wasn’t right. He ended up taking it back after an amicable argument and I got something else. 
 

send it back. It could be a batch thing though so if ordering the same thing may have the same issue. 

I have hundreds of 50s/60s originals that sound great with no trace of warps. I’d say 30% of new pressings are warped. Mikey Fremer played three new records in a recent video and all were warped.

Not one of my old 2000  records is warped.  Only this new one which I exchanged for a more warped one!    
‘Kept the original and returned the replacement.

Records are way too expensive to accept that.

This record was a cheapie from Amazon, just $18.

@rvpiano …Only this new one which I exchanged for a more warped one! …

 It doesn’t happen often… but once in a while problems compound.

I ordered from Amazon about four or maybe five times. I remember returning two of them, both warps. I don’t order from them anymore. Too much hassle with returns. I like my life with no unnecessary complications.

Today, like in the past, most warps are caused by the dreaded shrink wrap. I thought the record industry had learned its lesson, but apparently not. I generally return warped records, but once in a while, assuming the warp is fairly minor ( and the record is unusual), I will keep it. There really is no excuse for warped records in this day and age.

Of course you can see why Amazon is not an ideal vendor to being giving special care to vinyl when they are shipping millions of products a day from hundreds of warehouses. 

@mijostyn 

USPS’ manhandling and poor packaging by sellers can make things FAR worse. AMAZON generally does an amazing job of packaging LP’s although I have, just within the past year, gotten several LP’s that weren’t labeled, sealed, or otherwise packaged just tossed into a box full of other stuff. THAT’s bad warehousing.

I spoke with my local postal carrier who tells me there is NO special handling of LP’s, they just come down a chute into a large canvas bag same as they always have and then get pressed against curvature of the bag or squashed by heavier bundles of magazines and boxes. UPS/FEDEX where we’re at (about 1-1/2 hrs southwest of Nashville) aren’t much better as we’ve gotten several packages that were just CRUSHED and a few that were soaking wet (their trucks leak). 

It’s a crap shoot.

I’ve returned TWO dual-LP sets this past month.  July isn’t the best time to buy, but six others were fine, being packaged in THICKER boxes. The two (including GoGo Penguin’s V2.0) were packed in thin, single-layer cardboard and came out of the sleeves looking like frisbees, same as the box they were in.

I own dozens of LPs that have upwards of a 1/4” of warp (usually one-sided) and I have sometimes used a strip of green painter’s tape (like super-postit stickiness) to hold that edge down while I use a center-clamp.

I’m considering buying an ORB while the tariffs on Japan are still at 10%. I just got dinged for a TD124/2 from UK (20%) - ouch - and long-term, having a flattener makes more sense than returning an LP (or set) only to find that to buy it again will now cost $238 instead of the $38 I had paid weeks earlier because that’s just how the market goes, right?

Just waiting for cooler days, and will have to visit Variety Records in Columbia again soon.

For me, buying an ORB flattener was a no-brainer and a decision I haven’t regretted. Size of one’s collection would be a determining factor.

Of the LP's I receive from Amazon, about 20-25% of them come with a serious crease in at least one corner of the outer cardboard jacket, a result (I presume) of the LP being grabbed by a corner of the jacket by the Amazon employee pulling the LP off a shelf in an Amazon warehouse, rather from the middle of the jacket (where the 12" diameter of the LP fills almost the entire height and width of the typically 12-3/8" jacket, thus making creasing of the jacket impossible). I return all LP's received in this condition for a replacement, and about the same 20-25% of the replacements arrive with the same damage. Back they go too, for a third try. Sometimes Amazon does not offer me that option.

I have severely cut back on my buying of LP's from Amazon, it's just not worth the hassle. I made an exception for the upcoming Molly Tuttle album (release date August 15th); Amazon has it priced at $12.99 (retail $24.99)! My sister has an Amazon Prime account, so shipping is free for even a single LP.