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


I'm not talking about just buying any record off the shelf, taking it home and discovering it sounds like turds. I mean when after you've done as much research as you could to find out what particular pressing is the best sounding of that album and purchased it online or found it in the wild. 

I had my latest disappointment with The Cult. I remember the album, which I had on CD, from my college days and recalled there were some pretty cool songs on the album. In fact I recall liking the whole album. I wondered how it would sound on my rig now? So I did the research and got a NM Canadian pressing. This is the honest truth - the whole record sounds terrible with no bass except for She Sells Sanctuary! It's crazy how the mastering of every song on an album may not be from the same recording. Many times it seems there is one song or a couple that seems to just sound better than the other songs on the album. 

I was really bummed out. That album could have been such a killer album. Bernie Grundman or Steven Wilson should remix it. So what do I do when this happens and I love the album?

I play it on another rig. A less critically serious rig. Most times these albums spring to life and are great. Is it the coloration of the vintage gear? Who knows but sometimes ignorance is bliss!

vuch

I concur with your digitally sourced pressings paragraph. I don’t seek them out but in several cases I’ve crossed that line in search for the best sounding. The last two I recall are Steven Wilson remixes of Aqualung and Songs From The Big Chair. I like my original green label Aqualung and it doesn’t fall into the bad pressing category but after I heard the Wilson remix I had to have it.

@vuch 

agree!

there are plenty of examples of great music which is digitally sourced, some of which was mastered to analog tape. and others pure digital files but still make great records. we have ’Brothers In Arms’, ’Famous Blue Raincoat’, ’Cafe Blue’.....and lots of others. these are great records. i have a 2 reel master dub of Cafe Blue. great sound. so it’s possible. are these in the league of my best all analog pressings? no, they are not. but musically they are wonderful in their own right. and they have nothing to apologize for. the music rises above any other concerns.

I do like the classical genre and have maybe 20 albums in the discography. I find that I don’t listen to them very much. I didn’t grow up listening to the genre. I suspect that if I did or truly loved the genre when I first heard it, I would have a stronger emotional bond that would help me to reach for the albums. I prefer listening to classical on NPR because of the DJ’s information and I don’t have to flip the record.

as far as a taste for classical, for me it was learned late in life. when i became a serious audiophile 30 years ago in 1994 (i was 43), i had no idea about classical. i was a 60’s rock guy purely. but as i started my system building process little by little i read the hifi magazines (before the internet) and they talked about classical and jazz so i started buying classical and jazz and learning. as my system got better, classical and jazz sounded better and better. and honestly my 60’s and 70’s rock little by little got somewhat exposed as not always sounding that great n direct compare.

so i learned slowly and got into the low hanging fruit of classical and jazz, the stuff that was easy to digest. and it turned out that i loved it. so as i got deeper first into jazz, then later into classical, and as my system got better, i gravitated to more and more adventurous jazz and classical. 

now 30 years later i listen to 70% classical. both digital and analog. i still love my 60’s and 70’s rock, but it’s now less than 10% of my listening. 

and i listen to whole classical albums streaming. there is so much out there. my system is designed to do great large scale classical. i love string quartets. and lately i’ve been listening to lots of large choral pieces. there is so much ground to cover.

so just be open and follow your ears and where ever the music leads.

as far as learning about classical; i don’t know that much. but i do read jacket covers of my collection, and when i stream there is lots of information, and then there is google to fill in the gaps. it there for the digesting whichever way you hear the music.

@lewn, @tablejockey, @kennyc +1

Yes! donating a record gives you a great feeling. Seeing the enjoyment on a person’s face is priceless when they find out you are giving them the album and don’t want anything for it. Donating to a vinyl store is also very cool, awesome suggestion!

I had the chance to test my hypothesis. Would the Cult Love Canadian pressing sound better on a vintage rig than on my high end rig? 

I hooked my newly refurbished Harman Kardon 930 Twin Powered receiver to a buddy’s Technics SL-2100 / Audio-Technica cartridge and his bookshelf speakers of which I forget the brand. It was a generic brand sounding name. They had a tweeter, 5" grey shinny plastic woofer and were front ported.

We were both really blown away with the sonics! All of the tone controls were set to neutral. The bass was there! Heavy, appropriate, what I remember the album sounding like. The only questionable thing I noticed was that the volume knob was at 50%. It was a nice listening level, not too loud. Sure enough, my buddy confirmed my suspicion that his speakers were 4 ohm.

Tomorrow night I’ll finally have the chance to put the new HK930 in my vintage rig! I also have an Audio-Techica cartridge on the AKAI linear tracking tt. I suspect I’ll get a little more volume from the Infinity RS4b speakers since they’re rated 8 to 4 ohms in the specs.

I did pull the trigger on a UK pressing that tablejocky recommended. It would be nice to get a pressing that sounds KILLER on the main rig. We’ll see when it arrives? Worst case scenario is a shoot out of Canadian vs UK on the vintage rig. 

 

 

The bass was there!

Why it's missing on your main rig is a mystery? My 1st inclination is the cartridge/setup. If other LP's are fine, then never mind.

The album Electric is especially punchy as it was produced by Rick Rubin.

The Cult – Electric – Vinyl (First pressing, Gatefold, LP, Album, Stereo), 1987 [r861424] | Discogs

A little closer to epic 70's recordings like a debut Montrose or debut Van Halen by Ted Templeman.