All the other considerations aside, this is for me one minimal expected requirement with every new vinyl purchase ……
Is the hole in the middle …… on both sides.
Brand new vinyl - what’s acceptable to you?
I just ordered a dozen new albums - this time all 180 g variants. The Norah Jones had a scratch on it coming out of the paper sleeve the first time. (Separate gripe - why do they package ostensibly “audiophile” albums in crappy sleeves which might actually damage a record?). I’ll return the Norah Jones. But, the Miles Davis album has a noisy spot 1/4 the way through the first track. I’ll try cleaning the record but usually don’t have to for a new album. Or should I as a better practice? (This old dog can learn new habits).
Fortunately, the Pat Metheny is dead quiet - thank you ECM! All my ECM vinyl - even from decades ago are quiet. However, my experience is that ECM is very much an outlier: that most labels will come with some noise.
I’m working my way through all the albums but it made me want to poll the group: How much noise do you accept on a new pressing? Do you have a rule of thumb for what to reject?
Thanks,
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@mylogic 😂 Indeed! Back in the day I had several records that were unlistenable due to being off center. You could see the tonearm pivot a half an inch. I haven’t come across that on a new one - yet - but more often than not, I find I need to relax the spindle hole a bit as many fit very tightly (too tightly) on my clearaudio table such that I’ve had some trouble getting them off safely. @audphile1 I have a number of MoFi I purchased in the 80s including Fleetwood Mac and DSOM which I had treated with LAST back then and they’re still very quiet (and sound great) today with just a brush cleaning. |
Yeah I have a couple of those too. I was thinking to pick this up at some point: https://elusivedisc.com/vinyl-center-hole-reamer/ By the way, speaking of Last….I have and use their record treatment as well. I bought their stylus care duo and am very impressed with it. Lower noise, improved clarity. Worth giving it a try. |
I buy the majority of my LPs in "mint used" condition from either very reliable stores in Tokyo or from a trusted vendor whom I see once a year at the Capitol Audio Fest. Unlike others, I do not wash newly acquired LPs, new or used from those sources. I also do not buy from eBay, unless I desperately want work from a particular artist who is hard to find, where I am willing to cross my fingers and hope that the LP I get will be as advertised. Nor do I ever buy from yard or estate sales or from Goodwill or any other thrift store. If a newly acquired LP has a flaw, I THEN wash it on my VPI HW17. I use Triton X100 and propanol diluted in distilled water in my record cleaning fluid, and I do rinse with plain distilled water which I did find to make a difference. If washing does not help, the LP goes to the trash bin. |
Like most responders here, I clean all my records ultrasonically before first play, whether brand new or secondhand. The original inner sleeves get replaced with anti-static sleeves from Nagaoka. If a brand-new record has more than two successive clicks from a scratch, I let Presto Classical know about it. (I buy almost all my new records on-line from Presto in the UK). They ask for a photograph, and send a new copy free-of-charge while asking me to destroy the old copy after the new one arrives. Sometimes the damage is highly visible (for example, on Decca records after they introduced glossy inner liners with pictures and ridged joins) but to me, most offensive scratches are invisible. I just send a photo anyway! |
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