Industry-wide quality issues

agutierrezb

agutierrezb

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As I've delved deeper and deeper into this hobbie over the last couple of years, I feel like I it is harder and harder to find quality records. I've seen reports of pressing plants around the world facing very high demand, which has let them to cut some corners in order to accelerate production and meet demand.

I've purchased maybe 30 records over the last couple of months, and I think less than half of them have been flat and have had no pops or cracks. Standard records from non-audiophile companies (Probably pressed at GZ) are now almost always defective, but what's more, some of the supposed high quality companies are delivering poor quality records too! I have a couple of off-center MFSL, and 2 defective records pressed at Pallas: one with lots of surface noise, and one with non-fill.

Let's discuss this issue. Am I the only one seeing a decay in quality across the whole industry? Is there a way to solve this? What have been your waorse experiences in this department?
 
agutierrezb said:
As I've delved deeper and deeper into this hobbie over the last couple of years, I feel like I it is harder and harder to find quality records. I've seen reports of pressing plants around the world facing very high demand, which has let them to cut some corners in order to accelerate production and meet demand.

I've purchased maybe 30 records over the last couple of months, and I think less than half of them have been flat and have had no pops or cracks. Standard records from non-audiophile companies (Probably pressed at GZ) are now almost always defective, but what's more, some of the supposed high quality companies are delivering poor quality records too! I have a couple of off-center MFSL, and 2 defective records pressed at Pallas: one with lots of surface noise, and one with non-fill.

Let's discuss this issue. Am I the only one seeing a decay in quality across the whole industry? Is there a way to solve this? What have been your waorse experiences in this department?
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It is unfortunate and it is widespread, I've gotten warps, defects, you name it from various companies. This is one of the main reasons I've gone to a "Quality over Quantity" mantra if you will, for my collection. Anything after the 1990's is a bit of a crap shoot in my opinion, anything pressed before then I most likely pick up used and have a chance to see what I'm getting. There are some older albums I look for modern "audiophile" pressings, but when I get to that point I get really picky as far as what I'm willing to accept. If I pay $40-60 dollars for a "quality" pressing, I expect quality. If it's not, it's going back and I use PP as much as I can to be able to dispute transactions.

I invested in a vinyl flat because I don't want the slightest of warps to hit my turntable, anal, maybe, but it's my choice...........plus, between a Vinyl Flat and an RCM you can get some great bargains on used albums due to warps bringing down the price.

In short, it all depends on how much I spent on an album to dictate what I'll put up with, but a flat record isn't a terrible minimum to expect from any company.
 
AnthonyI said:
It is unfortunate and it is widespread, I've gotten warps, defects, you name it from various companies. This is one of the main reasons I've gone to a "Quality over Quantity" mantra if you will, for my collection. Anything after the 1990's is a bit of a crap shoot in my opinion, anything pressed before then I most likely pick up used and have a chance to see what I'm getting. There are some older albums I look for modern "audiophile" pressings, but when I get to that point I get really picky as far as what I'm willing to accept. If I pay $40-60 dollars for a "quality" pressing, I expect quality. If it's not, it's going back and I use PP as much as I can to be able to dispute transactions.

I invested in a vinyl flat because I don't want the slightest of warps to hit my turntable, anal, maybe, but it's my choice...........plus, between a Vinyl Flat and an RCM you can get some great bargains on used albums due to warps bringing down the price.

In short, it all depends on how much I spent on an album to dictate what I'll put up with, but a flat record isn't a terrible minimum to expect from any company.
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Yeah, totally. For some reason we've come to accept crappy records as a normal thing, when it shouldn't be that way. I've recently had issues with records from independet/lesser known artists having a ton of static and noise. My guess is that they are pressing in the cheapest plants they can find, which leads to a very crappy product, but no one seems to care. What was more disapointing was finding defects on MoFis and Pallas-pressed records. If we can trust on them to deliver quality records, then who can we trust?
 
agutierrezb said:
Yeah, totally. For some reason we've come to accept crappy records as a normal thing, when it shouldn't be that way. I've recently had issues with records from independet/lesser known artists having a ton of static and noise. My guess is that they are pressing in the cheapest plants they can find, which leads to a very crappy product, but no one seems to care. What was more disapointing was finding defects on MoFis and Pallas-pressed records. If we can trust on them to deliver quality records, then who can we trust?
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I haven't come across any issues with any MoFi OMR's, Silver Labels are 50/50, but if you bought them new and have issues with them, I would be reaching out for replacement or refund. If you're going to market yourself as MoFi does, they should completely understand and offer a solution.
 
I don't think there are any solutions to this problem. It's a big frustration in my world as well. So many people seem willing to just accept the crapification of things and accept the push-back by the distributors of records and other products. More and more you're seeing reports of refusal to refund "if it plays." Maybe it's not the distributors responsibility to fix the issues, but it surely isn't mine as the consumer to take financial responsibility for it.

Of course when greater than 25% of all record purchases never get played and many of the people purchasing records have grown up with the expectation of things being crapified what can be done?

Basically I invested in a vinyl flat for similar reasons as @AnthonyI. It removes some of the stress of a purchase for me, but because I'm still buying a fair amount of records I am constantly flattening. Cleaning and flattening have become such a huge part of the hobby for me.

Another problem is that the ingredients (the pressing facility, master, etc.) are not ID'd before you purchase... maybe this should be a requirement.
 
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AnthonyI said:
I haven't come across any issues with any MoFi OMR's, Silver Labels are 50/50, but if you bought them new and have issues with them, I would be reaching out for replacement or refund. If you're going to market yourself as MoFi does, they should completely understand and offer a solution.
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I've had not perfectly flat MoFis but the issue was very minor.
 
jaycee said:
I don't think there are any solutions to this problem. It's a big frustration in my world as well. So many people seem willing to just accept the crapification of things and accept the push-back by the distributors of records and other products. More and more you're seeing reports of refusal to refund "if it plays." Maybe it's not the distributors responsibility to fix the issues, but it surely isn't mine as the consumer to take financial responsibility for it.

Of course when great than 25% of all record purchases never get played and many of the people purchasing records have grown up with the expectation of things being crapified what can be done?

Basically I invested in a vinyl flat for similar reasons as @AnthonyI. It removes some of the stress of a purchase for me, but because I'm still buying a fair amount of records I am constantly flattening. Cleaning and flattening have become such a huge part of the hobby for me.

Another problem is that the ingredients (the pressing facility, master, etc.) are not ID'd before you purchase... maybe this should be a requirement.
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I know what you mean, I have a crate I toss albums that need to be "Fixed" in, and maybe once a month I go on a "Clean and Cook" marathon. It hasn't been bad, but I also don't want to cause myself more aggravation by spending all my time fixing rather than spinning. As for the "if it plays" excuse, sorry, I'll be sending in a dispute with my payment company until satisfied. Here's an interesting thing to keep in mind, this happened with my one and only dispute.........so far, lol. When I sent in the dispute and they processed it, contacted the vendor and then contacting me with instructions for a refund, the agent shared these little details. "we've contacted the company and they've replied that a warp is normal" then as I read on "We've reached out to them a second time asking, shouldn't a vinyl record inherently be flat?"

They never responded to the payment processor and just issued a refund. So my assumption is that most "normal" people understand that a record should be flat. So disputes are always an option in my eyes ;)
 
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jaycee said:
Maybe it's not the distributors responsibility to fix the issues, but it surely isn't mine as the consumer to take financial responsibility for it.
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This. Distributors tend to be annoyed whenever they're asked to replace or refund a defective record, as if the pressing issues where inherent to vinyl. If we as customers ask for a good quality product, distributors will eventually have to ask the manufacturer to deliver a quality product, since there is only so much refunds and replacements they can afford.
 
agutierrezb said:
This. Distributors tend to be annoyed whenever they're asked to replace or refund a defective record, as if the pressing issues where inherent to vinyl. If we as customers ask for a good quality product, distributors will eventually have to ask the manufacturer to deliver a quality product, since there is only so much refunds and replacements they can afford.
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You would hope, the inherent problem of the purchase is that they already have your money so you need to be as persistent as you can. ;)
 
agutierrezb said:
True. This sort of stuff makes me second-guess chosing this expensive and often frustrating hobby.
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It doesn't have to be frustrating, you just need to adjust to what's available so to speak. There are vendors and pressing plants I just avoid, not matter how appealing the album is. At least when crate digging I can see and touch the album and if the "grooves" look good, I know I can clean any dirt and dust and if there is a slight warp I can break out the VF ;)

As vinyl consumers, actually any consumer, we some times give into FOMO when our common sense is telling us otherwise, lol
 
AnthonyI said:
It doesn't have to be frustrating, you just need to adjust to what's available so to speak. There are vendors and pressing plants I just avoid, not matter how appealing the album is. At least when crate digging I can see and touch the album and if the "grooves" look good, I know I can clean any dirt and dust and if there is a slight warp I can break out the VF ;)

As vinyl consumers, actually any consumer, we some times give into FOMO when our common sense is telling us otherwise, lol
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You're right. But then again, there are very few vendors and labels who share pressing details, and in those cases it is hard to make an informed choice.
 
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