Yep, some, or a lot of new pressings are a crap shoot. Was playing Sade Promise LP I bought in the PX in the 80’s, and sounds wonderful. Wife asked if it was an audiophile pressing, said nope, only a $6.95 PX special back then. She was shocked. I have purchased some Barnes and Nobles specials, Chris Isaak and Queen, , for example, and they sound great too. Not special, but a B&N special,,,hmm, is B&N sourcing records from top notch manufacturers and distribution and rebranding? On the other hand, some Audiophile new pressings, like Santana and his new duet with someone, you can tell I forgot that one fast because the recording sucks, was just awful. It’s sounds tinny, screatchy, and compressed, like the audio from Sirius XM in my Shelby, outside the exhaust of course.
I am reluctant to jump on current Audiophile box sets until an early adopter gets one and posts reviews for others to hear about. Hmmm, LED Zeppelin Mothership was another hyped Audiophile pressing mess, only played once. You immediately get a sense of the recording if it is good or not after dropping the needle and hearing the first voice.
Pops are inherent to vinyl; however, can be mitigated by ultrasonic or wet cleaning record and using anti static brush, and that zappy anti static tool. The better the tonearm and cartridge combination, the better it is at damping some clicks. I know we all use MOFI antistatic sleaves after cleaning our records too, right.
