Status of vinyl reissues?

[stevethehouse]

120 is fine. I still attest that the thickness of the vinyl has nothing to do with the quality of the pressing. If you store your records properly, you shouldn't worry about warping, and that's pretty much the only argument that can be made in favor of 180 grams.

Haven't most of the albums in the "coming soon" pipeline been re-pressed within the past year and a half or so? Seems like it would be more of a priority to get stuff like the YLT records (which have been OOP forever) out first. But then again, I have no idea what sells. I'm sure Cat Power & Interpol sell twice as much as YLT does.

I was pretty excited to have "Painful" in my hands this year, but looking at that list it seems like I can expect it sometime around 2012.

[stevethehouse]

Originally Posted by Patrick

Our old 150 gram pressings were done at 33 1/3, which has now shut down.

That place deserved to be shut down.

[Funk]

Originally Posted by Patrick

First, how do people feel about 120 gram vinyl? It's faster to turn around, and I'd say that RTI 120 is better than United 180 (actually I prefer the sound of 120 in general, but that's another story - 180 is more resistant to warpage). What about if it were the same price as 180?

Am I the only one not impressed at all with the 180 RTI pressings? My I Am Not Afraid of You... and The Jicks albums had visible scratches on them straight out of the packaging, and horrible surface noise (haven't played the recent Mogwai yet). The "See/Saw" 7" and "Cold Son" 10" were fine, though.

[threelobed]

i might be mistaken, but i don't think RTI presses any 10" vinyl. i use RTI to press all of the vinyl for my label (three lobed recordings) and i have noticed in a few recent releases a few random vinyl "scraps" that might pop up in with a very small number of records. the records where these scraps have appeared have left some surface noise in some situations and outright damaged some records beyond the point of use. it's an easier situation for me to notice since i don't have RTI do any packaging for me apart from placing the LP inside of a polysleeve, but it would easily be a more troublesome thing for a lot of releases. i've only noticed this "scrap" issue over the last 6-ish months, maybe attributable to the constantly-running 180g presses at RTI. this said, i'm still a big fan of their overall quality control.

Originally Posted by Funk

Am I the only one not impressed at all with the 180 RTI pressings? My I Am Not Afraid of You... and The Jicks albums had visible scratches on them straight out of the packaging, and horrible surface noise (haven't played the recent Mogwai yet). The "See/Saw" 7" and "Cold Son" 10" were fine, though.

[Dave]

I forgot to reply to Funk's earlier post, but both "See/Saw" and the "Cold Son" 10" were not done at RTI. And, like Three Lobed I still consider RTI to be the overall leader in quality when it comes to North American pressing plants.

Funk: What's up with Ian from F.A.B.'s pressing plant?

[Patrick]

I'll second what Dave has to say, but has anyone else had problems with RTI pressings?

One thing's for certain: nobody's perfect these days. Except maybe whoever presses Coup d'Archet, but I'm guessing that most of you would prefer to avoid £300 for four LPs.

038-1 back in the house!!!!

[stevethehouse]

RTI is the best pressing plant in North America for sure. For my money pressings don't get much better than the stuff being done by Lilith / Vinyl Lovers but I don't think those are pressed in America.

[tinobeat]

Originally Posted by stevethehouse

RTI is the best pressing plant in North America for sure. For my money pressings don't get much better than the stuff being done by Lilith / Vinyl Lovers but I don't think those are pressed in America.

Lilith is based in Russia, right? I wonder if they have some old soviet plants making those, or maybe they use the Czech place that's so good.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by stevethehouse

RTI is the best pressing plant in North America for sure. For my money pressings don't get much better than the stuff being done by Lilith / Vinyl Lovers but I don't think those are pressed in America.

You must have a lot of money. At the $20.00 range that the Lilith stuff was retailing at originally I was quite happy, but now that they are in that $30.00 range, that shit is too expensive. I think the pressings are fine, but I also haven't thought they were out of this world great. I mean some of the appeal is that a lot of the south american LPs that they are doing are quite hard to find in good condition without parting with sick amounts of cash, but I still think that a lower price point would mean more sales overall.
Also, that shit ain't legit is it? (I'm not sure, but I've always assumed that it was not.)

[A-Squared]

Originally Posted by Dave

You must have a lot of money. At the $20.00 range that the Lilith stuff was retailing at originally I was quite happy, but now that they are in that $30.00 range, that shit is too expensive. I think the pressings are fine, but I also haven't thought they were out of this world great. I mean some of the appeal is that a lot of the south american LPs that they are doing are quite hard to find in good condition without parting with sick amounts of cash, but I still think that a lower price point would mean more sales overall.
Also, that shit ain't legit is it? (I'm not sure, but I've always assumed that it was not.)

Yeah, I don't believe that it's legal either. I used to work at a distributor and the Lilith stuff would always arrive in the same boxes with some legit releases by another label. It's basically a "Russian" front for the bootlegging arm. And I don't think their pressings were all that either, especially not for the price.

[stevethehouse]

Originally Posted by tinobeat

Lilith is based in Russia, right? I wonder if they have some old soviet plants making those, or maybe they use the Czech place that's so good.

So they say. Truthfully though, I think it's most likely a Russian front for an American company. I know I've seen that theory proposed many times on Audiophile message boards.

[stevethehouse]

Originally Posted by Dave

You must have a lot of money. At the $20.00 range that the Lilith stuff was retailing at originally I was quite happy, but now that they are in that $30.00 range, that shit is too expensive. I think the pressings are fine, but I also haven't thought they were out of this world great. I mean some of the appeal is that a lot of the south american LPs that they are doing are quite hard to find in good condition without parting with sick amounts of cash, but I still think that a lower price point would mean more sales overall.
Also, that shit ain't legit is it? (I'm not sure, but I've always assumed that it was not.)

Trust me, I don't have a lot of money... I just spend a great deal of my disposible income on music.

It's probably not legit and I do agree that the pressings are absurdly expensive. There are some LPs that were worth it to me like the first Faust album and both of the Harmonia albums. I only have about 4 or 5 of their pressings and they've all been top notch.

[Dave]

Originally Posted by stevethehouse

Trust me, I don't have a lot of money... I just spend a great deal of my disposible income on music.

It's probably not legit and I do agree that the pressings are absurdly expensive. There are some LPs that were worth it to me like the first Faust album and both of the Harmonia albums. I only have about 4 or 5 of their pressings and they've all been top notch.

Yeah I have those too, and I luckily got them before the $10.00 price jump. I've also bought those Mutantes LPs and a good deal of the Caetano Veloso LPs.

[tinobeat]

I wish I'd gotten Harmonia Deluxe before the jump, I definitely need that one. I only have the 1st Harmonia and the Caetano Veloso one, as far as Lilith records go.

[Funk]

Originally Posted by Dave

I forgot to reply to Funk's earlier post, but both "See/Saw" and the "Cold Son" 10" were not done at RTI. And, like Three Lobed I still consider RTI to be the overall leader in quality when it comes to North American pressing plants.

Funk: What's up with Ian from F.A.B.'s pressing plant?

My huge response did not take, so here it is again in brief form:

1) I bought I Am Not Afraid of You... and Spencer Dickinson's LP at the same time; YLT was visibly scratchy and audibly clicky. Thinking perhaps my standards were far above expectations for what vinyl should sound like, I left it as is. I then played the S-D LP, and that sounded like pure silk. I then ran into the same problems with the Jicks LP. Did I just happen to get 7 sides of not so stellar vinyl?

2) Don't know what you're talking about. Has F.A.B. pressed anything since the Shake days of the early-1990s? I thought they did distribution-only, not production.

3) I bought a Lilith release and and Earmark (Sanctuary & Get Back's vinyl label) release at the same time a few years back. Both had the same first 6 digits on their bar code, same info in the run-out groove (Czech plant web address), and both were housed in jackets that had an orange tint on the inside that I have never seen on any other label's pressings, so if you want to know who's behind them....

I'm glad that was on across the board Lilith increase. I thought it was just us here in Canada getting shafted, which pissed me off because it took forever to get that Faust LP, and the Marianne Faithfull and first Cluster LPs got priced out of my range after the store sold the lower priced ones.