Today I went down to one of my favourite record stores, armed with a gift certificate received on my birthday, to pick up a copy of The Fall’s 1985 album This Nation’s Saving Grace, re-issued by Vinyl 180 (under a licensing agreement with Beggar’s Banquet) back in June of 2009.
Although the record cost me $28.99, I was excited at the prospect of a 180-gram version remastered from the original analogue tapes.
At first blush, I can say that the packaging and inserts are certainly impressive.
The sleeve is heavyweight gatefold.
The insert contains a number of interesting photos and is printed on durable cardboard.
Satisfied so far, I took the record out and gave it a thorough cleaning on my VPI, using a deep cleaning treatment and two rinse cycles. With the record looking pristine I took it over to the turntable and dropped the needle.
Much to my disappointment, the lead-in to “Mansion” was quite noisy, with many tics and pops. Once the song got going, these disappeared, or at least faded sufficiently into the background.
As I went through the album I was impressed by the dynamic range exhibited in each track. The songs sounded fantastic and I certainly appreciated the original analogue master. The sonics are markedly better than my CD version.
Unfortunately, I was much less impressed by the audible noise between each tracks that too often crept into and perceptibly interfered with the intro and outro. Moreover, the record suffers from a wicked warp that certainly doesn’t help when it comes to noise-free playback.
It seems to me that if you are going to take the time to press an audiophile/collector’s version of a record re-issue, you’d want to take care to maintain quality control during production. It’s one thing to churn out a cheap re-issue just to satisfy whatever demand that’s been identified for a particular record. At least then the buyer would know what he’s getting, acknowledging some risk that the pressing may not be perfect. It’s entirely different to market (and price) the re-issue as a high quality version that ostensibly appeals to discerning listeners and not take the necessary steps to ensure little annoyances (i.e. tics and pops or warps) caused by poor pressing or cheap materials (e.g., recycled vinyl) are eliminated at the manufacturing stage.
Sadly, it seems that many audiophile/collector pressings these days are committed more to audiophile/collector prices than quality manufacturing. If the lack of quality control continues, I’m not sure how keen vinyl enthusiasts will be to splash out the cash to obtain them.
I should admit that I haven’t listed to any other of Vinyl 180’s re-issues, so I don’t want to suggest that this is a pattern with this company. But, after this initial experience, my enthusiasm for the next Vinyl 180 re-issue of a record by The Fall has certainly dampened.
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