NewsFedora
Well-Known Member
The first record is passable for me, but I gotta give the second record another cleaning and a closer comparison with how it sounds on CD. Method Man (the song) has some consistent popping near the end that I can't remember if it's in the original, and there's some weird popping distortion on Protect Ya Neck I've never experienced before. It'd be amusing if like ATLiens I end up requesting a replacement but not for the reason everyone else is needing one.
Otherwise... this sounds pretty darn nice. Definitely an overall improvement over my 2014 reissue.
I wanted to get my ticket into Customer Service before tomorrow's October ROTM announcement so I just finished going through everything and shot them an email. On the plus side, comparing a digitally-sourced Method Man shows the pops are present so it's normal for that song. And it took multiple cleanings, but the distortion and pops on Protect Ya Neck are now also gone so... I can live with this. The surface noise at the start of Side A is minor and pretty much vanishes once Bring Da Ruckus hits.
Public Enemy, on the other hand... is not so lucky:
My only other major issue was The Hawk Flies High missing its listening notes booklet, so it's kind of strange to think of me asking to replace only one out of four albums in my box as a win.