Better vinyl these days?

[jahkob]

Greets,

Recently I bought a batch of vinyl for the first time in maybe 3 years, mainly 12-inch and LP´s, and what hit me was that the quality of the pressed vinyl was so good compered to a lot of thin presses that came around 5-8 years ago. As most of these are from the UK I wonder have even UK people turned abroad for quality vinyl presses or are people using a new pressing plant or have a well known vinyl pressing plant stepped up their game? Or maybe its just me being lucky with the titles Ive bought.

[Lemmy]

All the vinyl I've bought recently has been noticeably heavier and better-pressed than has been the case in the past. And the mastering is often quite stunning too. The Jackie Mittoo In Cold Blood in particular sounds massive, and justifies the photo on the back of Bunny posing with the mastering engineer.

[jahkob]

All the vinyl I've bought recently has been noticeably heavier and better-pressed than has been the case in the past.

yes, exactly this struck my mind too.

[jah_vaults]

Wanted to say maybe this is because you have bought the 180 gram vinyl re issues so they will sound better as all 180 gram represses do sound good probably better sounding then the original press. Can you confirm you are talking about the 180 gram reissues? or just regular reissues?

[jahkob]

nah, no 180 gr presses here. The thought mainly struck me after playing the new Finley Quaye/Twinkle album and following it up with Dubkasm´s Victory 12-inch. Ok ok, both those names more or less equals quality presses but the thickness of them are more than older items from the both.

[jah_vaults]

just the Jackie mitto cold blood Lp was released on 180 gram vinyl on ACL label few month ago not long ago but the price seems to be a bit more expensive then normal LP. so why will people want to buy the 180 gram press lp if the normal press lp sounds fine? I wonder?

[RB]

180 gram vinyl = better sound quality is a myth.

the usual reason given is that a deeper cut groove allows for better frequency range/response, which is true to an extent, but the thing is that the grooves are cut on the master lacquer way before a record goes to press, so the grooves on the stamper (which is being pressed into the 180 gram vinyl) are identical to what's on the master lacquer. i've never heard of a mastering engineer being told to cut specifically "for 180 gram vinyl."

180 gram is purely a cosmetic/aesthetic/marketing thing.

read here for some other good info -
http://www.recordpressing.com/2010/03/t ... d-myths-2/

[kalcidis]

It's not entirely cosmetic. 180 g are less prone to warp. Also the 180 g presses tend to be virgin presses ie. only new vinyl (not guaranteed though).

I've got a Pampidoo LP on High Times that has to be 200 g. It's one of the heaviest vinyls I have (together with the brilliant Swedish hiphop EP Sounds of Speech by Phonetik)

[Lahei]

Maybe this has something to do with it:

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/vinyl- ... rd-presses

Vinyl is coming back hard