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Vinyl inconsistant

snaphappybob

snaphappybob

pfm Member
So I dipped my toes into the world of vinyl with a Pro-ject T1 turntable and have been quite impressed.
I've only a couple of albums: The Smile and Joy Crookes so thought I'd try another album I've only listened to using Qobuz via a Mac mini with Audiovarna and a Mojo 2. The album in question is Alt-J's 'The Dream". It sounds fabulous streamed and awful on vinyl! Is this likely to be just a bad pressing or is it highlighting a deficiency with the turntable? My first thought was to take it back to HMV for a refund or exchange. I was swayed by the limited coloured vinyl rather than the 180g at the same price. Thoughts?
 
It doesn't matter what colour it is, the quality of sound from vinyl albums varies enormously and always has. Some sound amazing, some flat and lifeless, some thin and harsh. The trick is to try and use a turntable which brings out the best of vinyl while still being tolerant enough of poor albums to let you enjoy them. Upgrade carefully!
 
snaphappybob said:
My first thought was to take it back to HMV for a refund or exchange
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Probably a good idea, particularly since you are enjoying the streamed version already. Exchange it for something you don’t know, discovering music on vinyl with the big art work and all is often a special moment that streaming as a hard time replicating.
 
Not saying just coloured are bad - but usually coloured ones were just made for a gimmick with no thought for anything else.
 
Coloured vinyl, or picture discs as we used to call them are a sonic disaster. THey should be sold with a warning label for the unsuspecting. I used to hang mine on the wall. They do look nice though. Apart from The White Album which looks a bit insipid.
 
Paul Hindle said:
Coloured vinyl, or picture discs as we used to call them are a sonic disaster. THey should be sold with a warning label for the unsuspecting. I used to hang mine on the wall. They do look nice though. Apart from The White Album which looks a bit insipid.
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Coloured vinyl and picture discs aren’t the same thing at all, coloured vinyl just has a different pigment in the vinyl and there’s no reason it shouldn’t sound perfectly fine… picture discs have a picture laminated onto them and they’re pretty dire for sound quality.

I only have a few coloured records and only listen to a couple of them with any regularity, but one is Deacon Blue, Raintown, which is a semi translucent royal blue coloured disc, sounds great, and the other is Bob Marley-Legend which is multi coloured, looks ace and sounds great!
 
Hi All,

For what its worth vinyls can be very inconsistent. Unlike CD’s in the digital world, Vinyl is subject to a lot more variations that can impact the final product. Mastering, Cutting of the Mater-disk, attention to detail when making the stampers (the die plates) and preparation of the plastic before it is finally “stamped” between the dies.

I too have heard much variation between samples. As an example, I recently bought Coltrane's Giant Steps and Blue Train on an ordinary release, these sounded magic, quiet with no audible distortion. I also bought a copy of Lana Del Rey's Born to Die, on the more complex passages you can clearly hear what sounds like overlading of the cutting head in the master that is clearly not there in the CD master. A copy of Nick Caves No More Shall we part has issues with swooshing noises in the background and has notable distortion that sound like the plastic was either too cold during pressing process or contaminated with fine debris in the vinyl mix.

Vinyl is a physical media and as such subject physical variations, its small niche market means that many of its consumers will accept lesser quality just to own what they perceive to be a specialist product. As consumers we have a choice, we can demand a refund or replacement every time we get substandard pressing or we can accept the current state of play with vinyl LP’s. It would appear that the majority of consumers are doing the latter as the problem doesn't appear to be going away.

LPSpinner
 
I have an LP12, bought part new this year plus existing cartridge all at a cost circa £5k.
Sound quality is inconsistent across different records and same records but different pressings.
I prefer Qubuz at £10 a month with free content, much less variation and less hassle.

I do occasionally purchase vinyl, but it mirrors your experience.
 
Reasonable numbers of coloured vinyl here - all sound perfectly OK, as. logically, they should. As to the record weight - it means absolutely nothing whatsoever, except that the LP weighs more when 180g.
The only rubbish coloured LP that I have had was a mult-coloured "splash" pattern where the two batches of differently coloured raw vinyl had not fused together correctly so that there were clicks at every change in colour.

I buy a few LPs every month and only an occasional one sounds poor, usually due to poor mastering.

Lots of people seem to have poorly set-up TTs and/or do not know how to clean and keep clean, LPs.
 
Mr Pig said:
It doesn't matter what colour it is, the quality of sound from vinyl albums varies enormously and always has. Some sound amazing, some flat and lifeless, some thin and harsh. The trick is to try and use a turntable which brings out the best of vinyl while still being tolerant enough of poor albums to let you enjoy them. Upgrade carefully!
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This. What's the point of buying records when you can't play them because they don't sound good through your system (obviously your room plays a part as well)?
I used to have a system that made well-mastered records sound superb but it just made listening to a lot of my records a bit of an endurance; mostly modern records from say the noughties onwards.

I've now got a different TT in place and all those records that I always ignored because they didn't sound good, well they're sounding good and enjoyable to listen to. They might not sound superb but at least I can now play and enjoy all my records, which is surely the purpose of have a hifi system in the first place.
 
My copy in Yellow PVC of Yellow Brick Road sounds great!

I can see no reason for colour alone to be the determinant factor in sound quality, as others have already mentioned.
 
The Joy Crookes album I have is also coloured and sounds fabulous, think it might be an issue with mass production.
I'll take it back to HMV and swap it or get a refund.
 
It used to be said that black vinyl sounded better because black carbon was used which strengthened the record but coloured dyes don't. Whether you can hear the difference I don't know but given the choice I always go with black (and it's usually cheaper)
 
snaphappybob said:
I was swayed by the limited coloured vinyl rather than the 180g at the same price. Thoughts?
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If the coloured vinyl doesn't sound any good there's a good chance the 180g will be rubbish too. Almost certainly the same master, probably the same stamper pressed at the same plant.

There's nothing magic about 180g records and some folk have claimed they're more prone to warping during manufacture.

From memory all the coloured vinyl I have sounds fine. As @linnfomaniac83 says picture discs are another matter - they're like a couple of flexi discs pasted to a picture.
 
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