What do you do when you get a bad vinyl record pressing?

We didn't notice bad pressings as much in the '80's and '90's because we all had processors. We prided ourselves on getting the music to sound as good as we could make it sound with all of the levers on the equalizer. I also had a dbx 3bx III which totally helped the sonics. 

Then the industry said there was too much noise from those processors and the most pure way to listen was to have no processors or tone controls or balance controls...  

@tablejockey +1. I'll take a chance on the UK. Generally I've been very satisfied with the UK presses. 

Not quite lathe chips but that turntable was deplorable. It ruined a lot of LP's. It seemed like it would grind the inside tracks. I used AudioTechnica cartridges and a Concord cartridge.  I really liked the Concord cartridge.  I wish I had one now to listen to some 50 years later.  Played through a Sansui 8080 which was a sweet amp.  -John

Yeah, I hate that. I typically listen to it for a while to set if it grows in me and then I sell it if it doesn't. 

@mikelavigne 

the first thing i did was to pull out all the digitally sourced pressings, which came to 400-450. these i took to a second hand store and sold them for $200

I wish you could have thrown them my way.

Especially now we have found out just how many 'analogue' disks were secretly digitally mastered 

@jsd52756 “Not quite lathe chips, but that turntable (Garrard Zero 100) was deplorable”

My scalpel joking aside, l know the Garrard Zero 100 very well. I did only know of one owner who loved it, a girl. I think she just liked the “bling l👀k” with all that see through plastic arm pivot mechanism.

The idea was sound mathematics but the resulting sound was never great. Too much horizontal friction in the engineering to make the null point “zero” all through the record.  The cartridge angle movement while playing was a novelty selling point.

As l say, on paper correct tracking was a good idea but there was just too much to overcome with the engineering. Also you could not use the lightest tracking cartridges with so much leveraging to move the cartridge.

In the 70s 1.25 grams was the preferred tracking weight for Shure V15’s and the Goldring G900 series for examples. With the Zero 100 not a good idea… think of doubling that with over 2 and up to 3 grams to stay in the groove. It could never track any of the so called Shure “trackability” test records.

Garrard tried and failed, but they did sell a lot. For the serious hi-fi enthusiast it was only ever considered a gimmick at best.