Vinyl Me Please (store, exclusives, swaps, etc)

Hi guys and gals, I uh... wrote a couple of words about what we now know about Claudia Thompson over in the General Music/Vinyl forum.

You Call It Madness: Searching for Claudia Thompson

PART 1: THE GIRLS ON THE NEGATIVES Our story begins in the summer of 2015, and with a find in a thrift store. A photographer in Richmond, Virginia, finds herself drawn to a box containing some photo negatives. Holding them up to the light, she can see an evocative scene of a woman, dressed in...
www.needlesandgrooves.com www.needlesandgrooves.com
 
Wow, I almost consider Paulie's posts here borderline gaslighting. "Majority of folks don't have that experience"? Sure, only if you don't order a combination of OutKast, MV, Wu and PE. Anthology replacements not "the normal"? The anthology thread here makes me never want to order an anthology, because I just don't think I can handle constantly asking for replacements.
 
bdrummond said:
Wow, I almost consider Paulie's posts here borderline gaslighting. "Majority of folks don't have that experience"? Sure, only if you don't order a combination of OutKast, MV, Wu and PE. Anthology replacements not "the normal"? The anthology thread here makes me never want to order an anthology, because I just don't think I can handle constantly asking for replacements.
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I can't fault Pauly, his job is completely thankless. He's the only public face of the company who just gets every single company mistake dumped in his lap. He has to try to mitigate this stuff because if he just said "you're right" over and over his bosses likely wouldn't appreciate that. I honestly wouldn't wish his job on my worst enemy.

I think you also have to keep in mind that MOST subscribers probably don't ask for replacements, or notice warps, or even play the records at all. Because MOST subscribers have Crosleys, or are flippers or collectors who never open the vinyl... most subscribers aren't us. Not to say that the problems aren't wide spread, they certainly are...

-looks at 7 bad copies of Wu Tang haphazardly tossed under bed-

But just that out of 20,000 (or 30 or whatever) subs, I bet only a small portion regularly asks for replacements...
 
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Mather said:
I can't fault Pauly, his job is completely thankless. He's the only public face of the company who just gets every single company mistake dumped in his lap. He has to try to mitigate this stuff because if he just said "you're right" over and over his bosses likely wouldn't appreciate that. I honestly wouldn't wish his job on my worst enemy.
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It is a pretty shitty job, for sure...but man either reddit has horseshoes up their ass or that is seriously downplaying a lot of issues.
 
Mather said:
I can't fault Pauly, his job is completely thankless. He's the only public face of the company who just gets every single company mistake dumped in his lap. He has to try to mitigate this stuff because if he just said "you're right" over and over his bosses likely wouldn't appreciate that. I honestly wouldn't wish his job on my worst enemy.
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This is how I feel about him as well. I haven't had an email from him in a while but it used to be that every complaint/issue I sent went straight to him and he was always courteous and made sure a replacement was sent my way.

Customer Service always gets the brunt of people's anger/frustration by nature and with a company that has sooo many issues it must be a really demoralising position to be in.
 
It absolutely is gaslighting from Paulie, and I'd have expected better from him. He knows full well that VMP has had various long-standing QC issues and while I can understand his personal frustration, that "Nuh uh, none of my records have had problems" is not at all helpful, particularly coming from someone who is repping the company.

I wrote this in an email back in October, when dealing with Public Enemy sound issues (which sadly were never resolved):

Things have been generally disappointing lately. I don't know if you guys keep track with how often a member messages in with an issue, but it feels like I've been reaching out for one problem or another every month for the last six months or so. I know Covid has a lot of things turned upside down so I'm not sure where the fault ultimately lies, but it really feels like the quality control has fallen off a cliff with these pressings, except for maybe Classics. I probably wouldn't be so critical if these records weren't a premium to begin with.

And I know you all can put out a fantastic product -- I've been here since 2018 have dozens of VMP records I absolutely adore (and that one missing booklet aside, Classics continue being home runs). But it's getting harder and harder to justify the ever rising cost of records when the overall quality has been taking such a hit. To an extent I think this goes for the vinyl industry at large in 2021 and it's not just with VMP.

Anyways I think I'm rambling a bit, but I just wanted to offer some more of my thoughts other than just "this record sounds terrible." Thanks for reading, I know you guys and gals in customer service work really hard to make things right.
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Anyways my yearly sub is up in May, and I think that's gonna be it for me, aside from maybe dipping back in for a killer ROTM month. It's just not worth the money and most importantly, I'm not getting enjoyment out of the product.
 
Mather said:
Bruh, Reddit = Crosleys
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Yeah, probably.
A Crosley will mask most sound issues, since the sound it produces is absolute shit.

An AT LP60 is SUPER forgiving, but you will still hear surface noise 9 times out of 10 loud and clear.
Anything in an LP120 and above you're going to hear every goddamn defect.
 
^ with the above I should qualify that I've owned all three in various stages of my record collecting and knowing what I know now the Crosley is the absolute worst thing you can buy, and if I see anyone looking at one I'll immediately steer them towards the LP60. Sound quality aside the thing absolutely chews up records. Say what you will about that AT LP60, I wish everyone on reddit would at least start there instead of a Crosley. Maybe then people would've complained enough about Wu/PE to get some represses on those too.
 
bdrummond said:
^ with the above I should qualify that I've owned all three in various stages of my record collecting and knowing what I know now the Crosley is the absolute worst thing you can buy, and if I see anyone looking at one I'll immediately steer them towards the LP60. Sound quality aside the thing absolutely chews up records. Say what you will about that AT LP60, I wish everyone on reddit would at least start there instead of a Crosley. Maybe then people would've complained enough about Wu/PE to get some represses on those too.
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I started a little over two years ago on a Crosley that was gifted to me and am Currently on an AT LP60 - best thing I've done for myself so far. The Crosley was noticeably shit on so many records. Especially on the innermost track or two of anything bassy. But I dunno that I would've been able to pick out any pressing issues with it, because I probably would've just attributed it to the player itself.

I would love to pitch up to an AT LP120, but need to stop buying so many damn records to do so! 🤔
 
avecigrec said:
I started a little over two years ago on a Crosley that was gifted to me and am Currently on an AT LP60 - best thing I've done for myself so far. The Crosley was noticeably shit on so many records. Especially on the innermost track or two of anything bassy. But I dunno that I would've been able to pick out any pressing issues with it, because I probably would've just attributed it to the player itself.

I would love to pitch up to an AT LP120, but need to stop buying so many damn records to do so! 🤔
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People like to shit on the LP60, but honestly it's a decent little player. With a decent enough set of speakers it does a great job, and you can really start to hear the difference in audiophile records. That said, I had a couple of complaints about it:

1) Skips like crazy on certain hot cut records. (latest press of Talking Heads "Speaking in Tongues" for example)
2) It's unforgiving and skips if your floor carries enough vibration from your movements. Probably because it's so damn light it feels like there's nothing to it.
3) Auto return is just another part that can break down. Mine broke down after two years (returns the tone arm and then immediately starts up again), which led me to upgrade to the LP120.

Otherwise it's pretty much dummy proof and can last you several years from starting off with the hobby. I wish I started out with it to begin with as the Crosley scratched some of my favourite records that I bought at the beginning. They skipped when jumping into the LP60, and the skips are non-existent on the LP120, but I know the scratches themselves are there and it drives me insane.
 
avecigrec said:
I started a little over two years ago on a Crosley that was gifted to me and am Currently on an AT LP60 - best thing I've done for myself so far. The Crosley was noticeably shit on so many records. Especially on the innermost track or two of anything bassy. But I dunno that I would've been able to pick out any pressing issues with it, because I probably would've just attributed it to the player itself.

I would love to pitch up to an AT LP120, but need to stop buying so many damn records to do so! 🤔
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I don't mean to belittle anyone reading these comments who does own a Crosley, it's truly not my intention... I understand that obviously budgets differ wildly person to person. But I just hope that if people are spending all this money on vinyl and then playing it on a suitcase Crosley that they understand they are actively destroying their records at a crazy fast rate vs almost literally any other player out there. Like that needle and arm are carving new grooves in those expensive records and they will sound noticeably worse on a decent player after only a couple of spins. Go buy any cheap vintage player you can find and it'll be worlds better for your vinyl than those things.
 
Mather said:
I don't mean to belittle anyone reading these comments who does own a Crosley, it's truly not my intention... I understand that obviously budgets differ wildly person to person. But I just hope that if people are spending all this money on vinyl and then playing it on a suitcase Crosley that they understand they are actively destroying their records at a crazy fast rate vs almost literally any other player out there. Like that needle and arm are carving new grooves in those expensive records and they will sound noticeably worse on a decent player after only a couple of spins. Go buy any cheap vintage player you can find and it'll be worlds better for your vinyl than those things.
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It's easy enough to get caught up with a Crossley if you don't know anythings about vinyl though. Like you just walk into somewhere like Sonic Boom, or Urban Outfitters and they have a bunch of different variations, they're cheap and you can pick up the latest Adele records you've been eyeing while you're there. Nobody will tell you the pitfalls of them, or that if you pay an almost negligible amount more, you can get a truly decent starter player that you can just hook up to any bluetooth setup, or even computer speakers you have laying around.

You don't really stop to think that what you're buying can actually DAMAGE the media it's meant to play.
 
bdrummond said:
It's easy enough to get caught up with a Crossley if you don't know anythings about vinyl though. Like you just walk into somewhere like Sonic Boom, or Urban Outfitters and they have a bunch of different variations, they're cheap and you can pick up the latest Adele records you've been eyeing while you're there. Nobody will tell you the pitfalls of them, or that if you pay an almost negligible amount more, you can get a truly decent starter player that you can just hook up to any bluetooth setup, or even computer speakers you have laying around.

You don't really stop to think that what you're buying can actually DAMAGE the media it's meant to play.
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Agreed that's why I wrote that previous post in a desperate attempt to inform all of the people who aren't on this forum and will never see it.
I think my logic is sound.
 
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