Needles & Grooves

Which cut do you have?

I have the '07 180g and am happy with it. Not exactly the best recording but in my experience STERLING + RTI = Good.

@TenderLovingKiller® might have compared a couple as I believe he recently upgraded.

The reason I ask which cut is I believe there is a version with the same plates that is 120g pressed at United. IF your version doesn't have any pressing defects that bug you, I personally wouldn't upgrade just for the weight. If it's a different cut I think '07 may be more likely to be better.

Yeah, I upgraded both Slanted & Enchanted and Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain to the 180g RTI and both are noticeably better than their 120g low priced vinyl reissues. Basically almost all of Matador vinyl pressings from 2007 thru 2009 are all pretty great. I try to pick them up when I come across one at a reasonable price. The price is steadily rising though.

I have a Guided By Voices and Times New Viking Record from the same era too and while they are all LoFi AF they are probably as good as these releases are gonna sound.

@TenderLovingKiller® Did you have the same STERLING cut 120g or the WG@NRP or the GZ one? If you remember.

I had the WG@NRP pressing. It wasn’t bad pressing, and RTI wasn’t like amazing but when listened to back-to-back I felt like RTI was more dynamic with less surface noise. Since Pavement is one of my favs I wanted the best pressing I could get and the RTI is definitely that. Still looking for the RTI press of Wowee Zowee less than $50.

I have the 180g and I've been happy with it. I've noticed that almost all of my 120g records sound... not great.

Pretty sure I have this one:

Yeah, it looks like the 2010 pressing I replaced was pressed at United so the GZ pressing might be better, maybe? But the RTI is the best.