The $45 price tag is a big OOF for the Fragile. However, from what I have seen from DS, it looks to be legit. I have a boot of when they played with Bowie (second half with mostly Bowie stuff) so I would like to start. I love DS so I was just gaguing how people felt. From what I have seen the poly sleeves leave much to be desired. I have higher quality ones where the paper on the outside is much sturdier.
I don’t recall what the poly sleeves were like but I don’t remember changing them or thinking they were any diff than some good ol poly sleeves but YMMV. As a pressing it’s dope. The Fragile Deviations are great too - depending on how much you like that album
The REs have been good. For the recent PHM avoid the 1LP. I’ve gotten to see them 3 times and they are one of the best live acts. Besides TR being one of the best of his generation & beyond
I think a litmus is that when you see them still - I saw em on the Bad Witch tour - you don’t just want them to be a legacy act playing Hurt, Closer, Head Like a Hole, etc. The new material is genuinely exciting. I can’t say that about a lot of groups I loved in the 90s
K so. Mastering is incredible, pressings are... troubled in some cases. I didn't have a problem with Hurt but like many others I had noise on "Something I Can Never Have" on PHM, "A Warm Place" and "The Downward Spiral" on TDS and on "The Way Out Is Through" on the Fragile. I went through multiple copies of each. It's on most of them, these weren't perfect pressings.
TBF, PHM isn’t part of the definitive pressings & yes Something I Can Never Have is flawed. I didn’t have any probs on DS or Fragile and I’ve listened to em many times. I’m not sure if by “It’s on most of them” means your copies or everyone’s cause that’s not what I’ve seen in Cogs comments
Also for PHM Something I Can Never Have is rough all around. I’ve the single Bicycle LP, Bicycle 2LP, and OG TVT German pressing. That song is ruff ruff on all of them
All the issues I had with DS and Fragile are echoed by others in the cogs comments. And I went thru multiple copies of each. So I'm pretty confident in saying it's on a great many of them, maybe some carts can't pick it up. But these weren't flawless pressings.
Oh yea I went through the comments and didn’t see any overwhelming criticism. Maybe depends when people bought them - baffled. I was one and done w both, no troubles. And I’ve listened to them over the last couple years w prob about 4 diff carts now
Dunno, I guess having a Shibata tipped stylus just makes for a lot more troubles with imperfect pressings. I believe Hoffman has the same issues with these ones, I remember checking before I bought them and hoped I'd avoid the issues, but no. But most of the tracks sound incredible. Piggy is up there with the best of my collection. The drums are so violent they almost knock me off the couch.
To me no pressing is "perfect" as much as we try to remove the surface noise, the clicks and pops, there still may be issues. However hearing that about Piggy intrigues me!
Then I say yes you will be happy with these and if you're a fan then grab them. I have all of them including Wish and Deviations (you do not need Deviations) and for the most part they sound very good and punchy.