Inner Groove Distortion- Turntable problem?

[80sonvinyl]

That is true. Mainly because a different runout would mean a different cut. Your UK pressing is going to be a different cut than the US copy for any album. Same goes for a first pressing vs. an edition that was pressed a few years later with a different cut vs. a brand new reissue that is a different cut still. You can have three copies of the same album and they can all be fundamentally different if they aren't the same cut.

By cut, I am referring to the lacquer cut or DMM plate cut. Please take some time and learn about how records are made.

Thanks for that. When I refer to getting two or three presses of an LP, they wouldn't be as fundamentally different as, say, a US Vs UK one, UK Vs French , etc. And never a later reissue. Let me put it this way, they would both be under the same Discogs page, eg. 'UK-1981, first pressing' so are the 'same pressing' in that respect. However, deadwax writing and numbers still obviously differ widely within this, so it's rarely the exact same pressing. I have no clue about the manufacture of vinyl...I presume differing deadwax inscriptions means different stampers or something?

 

[Wolfie62]

Maybe...would bad mastering result in bad IGD-sounding vocals? The chorus on Cloudburst was awful on mine (German/European pressing). I have a UK copy which plays fine.
Isn't that the US version which has the extended Science?

I should add that on a few LPs it's not just the inner grooves...the Ultravox one is a bit problematic throughout on the high frequencies.

Capitol is a US label; this was mastered by Capitol. This means the master tapes were used to cut lacquer and make stampers.

I don’t know if “Science” is a longer version or not.

I have many LPs recorded to within 6-7 mm of the label. I never get IGD. However, I do have 2nd hand LPs with damaged grooves on the last tracks; but there is telltale damage in other tracks also.

 

[patient_ot]

Thanks for that. When I refer to getting two or three presses of an LP, they wouldn't be as fundamentally different as, say, a US Vs UK one, UK Vs French , etc. And never a later reissue. Let me put it this way, they would both be under the same Discogs page, eg. 'UK-1981, first pressing' so are the 'same pressing' in that respect. However, deadwax writing and numbers still obviously differ widely within this, so it's rarely the exact same pressing. I have no clue about the manufacture of vinyl...I presume differing deadwax inscriptions means different stampers or something?

You need to post the matrix info or it's impossible to say in any specific case. If the numbers are way off it's not the same cut, PERIOD. If the numbers are mostly identical with slight differences it could be the same cut but a different stamper.

 

[808_state]

Bad stylus, cartridge mounting, or you’re still not getting your alignment correct.

I haven’t had IGD in years. Not in 10 pivot arm tables, over 80 cartridges. Records from 1954-2019.

What are you using to align with? If you’re not using it, I’d HIGHLY recommend you print and use the Conrad Hoffman Arc protractor from VE.

View attachment 2033987

Current cart and phono preamp?

And don't worry it's not a trick question. Just curious as to what people find to be winning combinations (regardless of price tag).

 

[80sonvinyl]

Capitol is a US label; this was mastered by Capitol. This means the master tapes were used to cut lacquer and make stampers.

I don’t know if “Science” is a longer version or not.

I have many LPs recorded to within 6-7 mm of the label. I never get IGD. However, I do have 2nd hand LPs with damaged grooves on the last tracks; but there is telltale damage in other tracks also.

Yes, as I say on many of mine there is slight damage on other tracks too. Then I have some records cut really close to the label that play fine. It's just that I feel I buy an abnormal amount of worn vinyl...about 15 used records I bought this year had the problem. And I don't buy many records compared to some people here

 

[Multiplex]

And by the way, no matter how loud/hot a record is cut...I'd imagine the combination of my TT and cart , which are both very highly esteemed, should be able to deal with them. But I'm not an expert.

I meant to respond to this yesterday, but didn't have the opportunity...

You do have a pretty good rig. And it should be able to properly play about 97% of all records that are playable, assuming it is set up properly. But, there will always be some problem records- including some that no turntable can play well.

There is a delicate balance to maintain when cutting a record... The engineer must balance apparent loudness and lifelike dynamics while maintaining proper equalization and clean top end. Runtime has to also carefully be considered. Hotter, bassier grooves take up more physical space. To add further complexity, the surface speed of the laquer disc relative to the cutting head is continuously slowing as the cutter nears the center of the disc. This means that the requirements for maintaining this balance are likewise continuously changing. Not every mastering engineer is created equal. Usually problems stem from an inexperienced engineer trying to cut a track from a hot digital master. Distortion may occur at the time of cutting. If dynamic transients are too hot, the cutter head might nick an adjacent groove. Or in very tight inner grooves, it may deform or wipe out bits of the previously cut waveform. If the problem is cut into the groove, no turntable can fix it.

Issues can also happen at the time of pressing. If the temperature or time on the stamper is not properly observed, little bits of vinyl can be lifted from the groove wall, leaving little voids and missing pieces of the waveform. Likewise, if a previously pressed record left little bits behind on the stamper, it will likely create irregularities in the groove of the next records pressed. Warps, waves and bubbles can occur. Dirt and impurities can also get pressed into the groove. In addition, mothers and stampers can be overused, causing degradation of their waveforms over time. If a pressing is bad, again, no turntable can bring back information that is missing.

All of these seem to be fairly common issues with newer vinyl, particularly with albums released from about 2006 to about 2015. It's been my experience that the quality of new albums is slowly but surely increasing.

So, why do I say your rig can likely only perfectly play 97% of the records that are actually playable, instead of 100%? Let's be honest, there have been more valiant efforts made to perfect playback.There are rigs out there that cost exorbitant amounts of money. Turntables with very sophisticated, extremely low resonance, low friction tonearms. Some may be damped, some may be longer to reduce tracking error, some may even be linear trackers. Likewise, there are cartridges with lower moving mass, and better cantilevers. A tapered aluminum cantilever might do better. Boron, maybe even better yet. There have been a great many attempts at increasing rigidity and lowering mass through the years... from tubular beryllium cantilevers to sapphire and ruby. Fritz Gyger cut stones. It's all about $$$. You could spend a whole lot of money to tighten up that last 3%.

And I'm not trying to insult, by the way... What you have, particularly with regard to that cartridge, is a very solidly performing rig that is an excellent tracker for it's price point. It is truly money well spent. With regard to the VM95ML, nothing can come close to touching it in it's price class. Of course you can buy better, but the price will rise exponentially from here. Is it really worth battling those frustrating diminishing returns to get incrementally better performance? Or are the flaws of your rig that give it "personality" tolerable to you?

 

[80sonvinyl]

I meant to respond to this yesterday, but didn't have the opportunity...

You do have a pretty good rig. And it should be able to properly play about 97% of all records that are playable, assuming it is set up properly. But, there will always be some problem records- including some that no turntable can play well.

There is a delicate balance to maintain when cutting a record... The engineer must balance apparent loudness and lifelike dynamics while maintaining proper equalization and clean top end. Runtime has to also carefully be considered. Hotter, bassier grooves take up more physical space. To add further complexity, the surface speed of the laquer disc relative to the cutting head is continuously slowing as the cutter nears the center of the disc. This means that the requirements for maintaining this balance are likewise continuously changing. Not every mastering engineer is created equal. Usually problems stem from an inexperienced engineer trying to cut a track from a hot digital master. Distortion may occur at the time of cutting. If dynamic transients are too hot, the cutter head might nick an adjacent groove. Or in very tight inner grooves, it may deform or wipe out bits of the previously cut waveform. If the problem is cut into the groove, no turntable can fix it.

Issues can also happen at the time of pressing. If the temperature or time on the stamper is not properly observed, little bits of vinyl can be lifted from the groove wall, leaving little voids and missing pieces of the waveform. Likewise, if a previously pressed record left little bits behind on the stamper, it will likely create irregularities in the groove of the next records pressed. Warps, waves and bubbles can occur. Dirt and impurities can also get pressed into the groove. In addition, mothers and stampers can be overused, causing degradation of their waveforms over time. If a pressing is bad, again, no turntable can bring back information that is missing.

All of these seem to be fairly common issues with newer vinyl, particularly with albums released from about 2006 to about 2015. It's been my experience that the quality of new albums is slowly but surely increasing.

So, why do I say your rig can likely only perfectly play 97% of the records that are actually playable, instead of 100%? Let's be honest, there have been more valiant efforts made to perfect playback.There are rigs out there that cost exorbitant amounts of money. Turntables with very sophisticated, extremely low resonance, low friction tonearms. Some may be damped, some may be longer to reduce tracking error, some may even be linear trackers. Likewise, there are cartridges with lower moving mass, and better cantilevers. A tapered aluminum cantilever might do better. Boron, maybe even better yet. There have been a great many attempts at increasing rigidity and lowering mass through the years... from tubular beryllium cantilevers to sapphire and ruby. Fritz Gyger cut stones. It's all about $$$. You could spend a whole lot of money to tighten up that last 3%.

And I'm not trying to insult, by the way... What you have, particularly with regard to that cartridge, is a very solidly performing rig that is an excellent tracker for it's price point. It is truly money well spent. With regard to the VM95ML, nothing can come close to touching it in it's price class. Of course you can buy better, but the price will rise exponentially from here. Is it really worth battling those frustrating diminishing returns to get incrementally better performance? Or are the flaws of your rig that give it "personality" tolerable to you?

Thanks very much for that. I often wonder if it's always groove wear that I experience, and not just poor pressings in the first place. I never really thought about that. I suppose my counter statement (because if you know me and my replies by now, I always have one LOL) would be that how come this isn't more of a hot topic on forums like these and/or under releases on Discogs? Incidentally, 99% of problem records for me are from the 70s and 80s. Probably just because I normally collect those.

If I may ask, how often do you get 'stung' by either built in IGD or poor pressings (that resemble IGD)? The reason I am so eager to get to the bottom of this is because listening to other collectors, I seem to get an abnormally high amount, which then leads me to question my rig. Some of my records have this 'hissing' distortion on highs that's very apparent (mostly on the end of a side but not always)...so apparent that even as a newbie, I don't see how a small tweak in alignment would fix it.
I agree with you about the VM95ML...I hear so many people singing praises for it and I suppose this is what leads me to further question my setup!

 

[Thunderbox]

While this is true, I wouldn't say that this is done particularly easily. Dynamic range and hot high frequency passages still need to be somewhat subdued, because even a decent quad setup can be challenged by rapid high frequency accelerations in the inner grooves. If something isn't quite right in the setup of a quad system, the inner grooves will reveal it very quickly. It's not just about frequency range, but also the limitations in amplitude required for high frequencies to be reproduced accurately.

It also true that an average basic turntable isn't capable of tracing inner groove quad. Since most vinyl listeners don't concern themselves with quad, they are more likely to use budget conical styli, or entry-level ellipticals. Therefore, most albums are cut with this lowest common denominator of equipment in mind. Engineers usually master using gradually increasing dynamic compression and high frequency roll off as they cut into the inner grooves. This helps to prevent distortion and mistracking when played with with cheap playback equipment. When a record is cut this way, it doesn't matter how good your equipment is, it will never recover information that was omitted prior to cutting. In other words, there is likely to be some inner groove high frequency degradation even if your turntable does everything right.

All of this occurs because groove speed at the innermost grooves is roughly half that of the outermost. This is an obvious limitation of the format, and one that has long been acknowledged by mastering engineers. It is the reason why slower, softer songs, or "throwaway" filler tracks have traditionally been selected for inner groove cuts. It never ceases to amaze me that some will still dispute this.

Inner groove limits are not close to being in the equation. I have had this discussion before and LPs can play the inner grooves as good as the outer grooves. The stylus has to be better to do it but the information is there. Conical styli have an advantage of not requiring as much set up and accuracy because the alignment doesn't really effect a conical to the same extent and some of them sound absolutely beautiful

 

[Multiplex]

Thanks very much for that. I often wonder if it's always groove wear that I experience, and not just poor pressings in the first place. I never really thought about that. I suppose my counter statement (because if you know me and my replies by now, I always have one LOL) would be that how come this isn't more of a hot topic on forums like these and/or under releases on Discogs? Incidentally, 99% of problem records for me are from the 70s and 80s. Probably just because I normally collect those.

If I may ask, how often do you get 'stung' by either built in IGD or poor pressings (that resemble IGD)? The reason I am so eager to get to the bottom of this is because listening to other collectors, I seem to get an abnormally high amount, which then leads me to question my rig. Some of my records have this 'hissing' distortion on highs that's very apparent (mostly on the end of a side but not always)...so apparent that even as a newbie, I don't see how a small tweak in alignment would fix it.
I agree with you about the VM95ML...I hear so many people singing praises for it and I suppose this is what leads me to further question my setup!

I purchased most of my collection second hand, but most of that was done about 10-25 years ago. Finding good clean records from thrift stores and yard sales for 50 cents or a dollar was very easy in those days. I'd say my luck was pretty good. Probably 85-90% good? I always ended up with a few bunk copies for whatever reason, particularly late 60's to early 70's rock records. I'm guessing that was mostly due to stereo records being played on cheap mono players and ceramic cartridge changers. But most of my 80's finds were good and clean. Fast forward to now... My luck is not so good. Most good vinyl has fallen into the hands of collectors. Many really don't know how to grade, and prices are all too often inflated. Needless to say, I don't buy used much any more. The majority of my most recent used acquisitions have been boxes of free records that someone is giving away. Some have been great, most have been trashed. I would say, 30% good.

 

[80sonvinyl]

I purchased most of my collection second hand, but most of that was done about 10-25 years ago. Finding good clean records from thrift stores and yard sales for 50 cents or a dollar was very easy in those days. I'd say my luck was pretty good. Probably 85-90% good? I always ended up with a few bunk copies for whatever reason, particularly late 60's to early 70's rock records. I'm guessing that was mostly due to stereo records being played on cheap mono players and ceramic cartridge changers. But most of my 80's finds were good and clean. Fast forward to now... My luck is not so good. Most good vinyl has fallen into the hands of collectors. Many really don't know how to grade, and prices are all too often inflated. Needless to say, I don't buy used much any more. The majority of my most recent used acquisitions have been boxes of free records that someone is giving away. Some have been great, most have been trashed. I would say, 30% good.

Yeah, I only wish I had been into records before the revival hit. I dabbled in the hobby about 10 years ago, but for whatever reason didn't stick with it. I'm just sickened imagining the records that I'd have gotten for 'two a penny' then, that are going for almost the price of a new album now. Cest la vie!
It really annoys me though to see used record shops blatantly jumping on the bandwagon. Overcharging massively. A recent experience being a shop near me trying to sell me a relatively beat up 12'' single of Visage- Fade to Grey for €20. €20!!! Just because, in the shopkeeper's words: 'theres only one other on Discogs and that's going for €25'. Really nice of him to price it lower, what a deal! Greedy bugger.

Living in a small country, an added pet peeve is native releases going for three or four times the price of, say, a UK press. Not even that most are particularly rare. Anyway, I digress.

 

[Multiplex]

Yeah, I only wish I had been into records before the revival hit. I dabbled in the hobby about 10 years ago, but for whatever reason didn't stick with it. I'm just sickened imagining the records that I'd have gotten for 'two a penny' then, that are going for almost the price of a new album now. Cest la vie!
It really annoys me though to see used record shops blatantly jumping on the bandwagon. Overcharging massively. A recent experience being a shop near me trying to sell me a relatively beat up 12'' single of Visage- Fade to Grey for €20. €20!!! Just because, in the shopkeeper's words: 'theres only one other on Discogs and that's going for €25'. Really nice of him to price it lower, what a deal! Greedy bugger.

Living in a small country, an added pet peeve is native releases going for three or four times the price of, say, a UK press. Not even that most are particularly rare. Anyway, I digress.

It's getting pretty ridiculous. A thrift store near me has a shockingly good selection of titles. You'd wonder why they are all languishing there on the shelf... That is, until you'd look at the tags. There's your reason! For instance, they recently had a copy of Warren Zevon's 'Excitable Boy' for $40!! It wasn't sealed or anything. In fact, it wasn't even in particularly great condition. That's outrageous! I could buy a copy of the same pressing in that kind of shape for less than half of that on the 'Bay. And, they received it as a free donation! Judging by the condition of their records and their price tags, they certainly don't know how to grade them. They just accumulate more and more records, which sit and sit. Every now and then they'll have a half off sale, and some will sell. Most of the time they're not even a good deal at half price!

No doubt some of those premium priced records have groove damage, surface scratches and warps. I wouldn't trust the employees there to know it if they did. That's why I buy their $1 CDs instead.

My copy of 'Excitable Boy' still has it's $1.50 tag on it, and plays beautifully until the end. Those were the days...

 

[Wolfie62]

Current cart and phono preamp?

And don't worry it's not a trick question. Just curious as to what people find to be winning combinations (regardless of price tag).

I run one of 3 phono preamps. The built in phono pre of my Sherwood, or the SAE, or the phono pre I designed and built 26 years ago. Current cart depends on what hour of what day. Currently on the arm is a NAD 9300 with a QLM 36 Stylus for evaluation.
It’s an aftermarket with a bonded elliptical. I’ve been running an Empire EDR.9, Shure M97 E4, and GE VR22. I’ve got 21 headshells loaded and aligned with various cartridges.

 

[80sonvinyl]

It's getting pretty ridiculous. A thrift store near me has a shockingly good selection of titles. You'd wonder why they are all languishing there on the shelf... That is, until you'd look at the tags. There's your reason! For instance, they recently had a copy of Warren Zevon's 'Excitable Boy' for $40!! It wasn't sealed or anything. In fact, it wasn't even in particularly great condition. That's outrageous! I could buy a copy of the same pressing in that kind of shape for less than half of that on the 'Bay. And, they received it as a free donation! Judging by the condition of their records and their price tags, they certainly don't know how to grade them. They just accumulate more and more records, which sit and sit. Every now and then they'll have a half off sale, and some will sell. Most of the time they're not even a good deal at half price!

No doubt some of those premium priced records have groove damage, surface scratches and warps. I wouldn't trust the employees there to know it if they did. That's why I buy their $1 CDs instead.

My copy of 'Excitable Boy' still has it's $1.50 tag on it, and plays beautifully until the end. Those were the days...

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Even the thrift stores are on to it now?! Jesus. I don't usually shop in those...I have yet to see an LP in a thrift store that I've been remotely interested in. For some reason it's always folk/orchestral etc that winds up in thrift stores near me. They're alright, but if I see another James Last or Nana Mouskouri record I'll throw up! Truck loads of the stuff. I should force myself to get into them, because the amount of those same LPs that are still sealed in shrink beggars belief!
It seems only to be the pop/rock ones, unfortunately, that get overpriced

 

[patient_ot]

Yeah. It's ridiculous. Even the thrift stores are on to it now?! Jesus. I don't usually shop in those...I have yet to see an LP in a thrift store that I've been remotely interested in. For some reason it's always folk/orchestral etc that winds up in thrift stores near me. They're alright, but if I see another James Last or Nana Mouskouri record I'll throw up! Truck loads of the stuff. I should force myself to get into them, because the amount of those same LPs that are still sealed in shrink beggars belief!
It seems only to be the pop/rock ones, unfortunately, that get overpriced

Professional flippers cleaned out the thrift shops in the areas I've lived in a long time ago. That or they have relationships with record dealers and stores, and the "good stuff" never hits the floor. Instead it's Streisand, Mantovani strings, religious records, Andy Williams, etc. I stopped looking for records in thrifts years ago.

It's getting pretty ridiculous. A thrift store near me has a shockingly good selection of titles. You'd wonder why they are all languishing there on the shelf... That is, until you'd look at the tags. There's your reason! For instance, they recently had a copy of Warren Zevon's 'Excitable Boy' for $40!! It wasn't sealed or anything. In fact, it wasn't even in particularly great condition. That's outrageous! I could buy a copy of the same pressing in that kind of shape for less than half of that on the 'Bay. And, they received it as a free donation! Judging by the condition of their records and their price tags, they certainly don't know how to grade them. They just accumulate more and more records, which sit and sit. Every now and then they'll have a half off sale, and some will sell. Most of the time they're not even a good deal at half price!

No doubt some of those premium priced records have groove damage, surface scratches and warps. I wouldn't trust the employees there to know it if they did. That's why I buy their $1 CDs instead.

My copy of 'Excitable Boy' still has it's $1.50 tag on it, and plays beautifully until the end. Those were the days...

I think I paid around $5-6 or something for a stone mint copy a few years ago.

Funny, a similar discussion occurred on a different forum about Talking Heads' Remain in Light album. I paid $3 for my copy back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Now it's a $30 record at most shops. Even a few years ago that was a $10 record.

 

[80sonvinyl]

Professional flippers cleaned out the thrift shops in the areas I've lived in a long time ago. That or they have relationships with record dealers and stores, and the "good stuff" never hits the floor. Instead it's Streisand, Mantovani strings, religious records, Andy Williams, etc. I stopped looking for records in thrifts years ago.




I think I paid around $5-6 or something for a stone mint copy a few years ago.

Funny, a similar discussion occurred on a different forum about Talking Heads' Remain in Light album. I paid $3 for my copy back in the late 90s/early 2000s. Now it's a $30 record at most shops. Even a few years ago that was a $10 record.

Yes I've noticed that with plenty of releases including that Talking Heads one, same with Speaking in Tongues. Also Depeche Mode's 2nd and 3rd albums come to mind, as does the original Tears for Fears- Seeds of Love. Decent copies of those now are €25-30, and standard UK presses are being described as 'Rare'. Just because they didn't sell as well as the artist's other albums does not mean that they're rare...
It seems to be no coincidence that all releases by old artists who are enjoying a rejuvenation in the young adult scene all command big money now. There's basically no used New Order, the Cure, Siouxie stuff reasonably priced anywhere. I know there's the argument of 'supply and demand', but come on. It's not like even when new they were worth a fraction of that.

I think that Discogs is responsible for a lot of inflated prices, shops seem to use the database as a standard for pricing records (if they only used their grading standard too). If there's only a few up for sale, it must be a 'rare' record and worth what others are charging. Ridiculous. In fact, in my search for a new Vienna record, a local shop , the same one, is currently selling one for €25, in VG condition. Just because it's an Irish press. On a local buying/selling site, there are multiple Irish presses for €10 or less, in similar condition from what I can see.

 

[80sonvinyl]

Just played the whole side of that problematic new record. Turns out it's not just the inner track, the first and second tracks have it too. Some songs fine. Like a 'crackle' similar to surface noise on high vocals/drum hits etc. I remember having had another like this in the past, it was the 2018 remaster of OMD's Architecture and Morality (which are quite well received). I thought that one was because I played it on a crappy record player 3 or 4 times, but the latest one, I never played it on that thing.

 

[patient_ot]

Yes I've noticed that with plenty of releases including that Talking Heads one, same with Speaking in Tongues. Also Depeche Mode's 2nd and 3rd albums come to mind, as does the original Tears for Fears- Seeds of Love. Decent copies of those now are €25-30, and standard UK presses are being described as 'Rare'. Just because they didn't sell as well as the artist's other albums does not mean that they're rare...
It seems to be no coincidence that all releases by old artists who are enjoying a rejuvenation in the young adult scene all command big money now. There's basically no used New Order, the Cure, Siouxie stuff reasonably priced anywhere. I know there's the argument of 'supply and demand', but come on. It's not like even when new they were worth a fraction of that.

I think that Discogs is responsible for a lot of inflated prices, shops seem to use the database as a standard for pricing records (if they only used their grading standard too). If there's only a few up for sale, it must be a 'rare' record and worth what others are charging. Ridiculous. In fact, in my search for a new Vienna record, a local shop , the same one, is currently selling one for €25, in VG condition. Just because it's an Irish press. On a local buying/selling site, there are multiple Irish presses for €10 or less, in similar condition from what I can see.

I paid around $10 for my copy of Vienna (U.S. Chrysalis pressing) around 3-4 years ago, which is in excellent condition. Don't think I'd pay much more than that.

Agreed on prices of those bands getting out of control. I paid $6 for my 2xLP of New Order's Substance back in the late 90s. Kinda funny what it goes for now. Cure and Banshees records here are very overpriced, even the U.S. pressings here which are very common. Fortunately all these bands have very good sounding CD pressings that can still be picked up cheap.

Just played the whole side of that problematic new record. Turns out it's not just the inner track, the first and second tracks have it too. Some songs fine. Like a 'crackle' similar to surface noise on high vocals/drum hits etc. I remember having had another like this in the past, it was the 2018 remaster of OMD's Architecture and Morality (which are quite well received). I thought that one was because I played it on a crappy record player 3 or 4 times, but the latest one, I never played it on that thing.

Probably just a crappy pressing. Unfortunately a lot of newer vinyl is like that. Flaws like non-fill, warped, off-center, contaminants, crappy sources like overcompressed digital files - all very common unfortunately. What record is this? Discogs link?

 

[Mr Boochie]

Maybe a linear tracking system? Low mileage Technics?

 

[80sonvinyl]

Maybe a linear tracking system? Low mileage Technics?

Haha after spending a grand on this table I think I'll stick with it and get to the bottom of it ! Ive heard that linear trackers have their flaws too or else we all would have em!

 

[80sonvinyl]

I paid around $10 for my copy of Vienna (U.S. Chrysalis pressing) around 3-4 years ago, which is in excellent condition. Don't think I'd pay much more than that.

Agreed on prices of those bands getting out of control. I paid $6 for my 2xLP of New Order's Substance back in the late 90s. Kinda funny what it goes for now. Cure and Banshees records here are very overpriced, even the U.S. pressings here which are very common. Fortunately all these bands have very good sounding CD pressings that can still be picked up cheap.



Probably just a crappy pressing. Unfortunately a lot of newer vinyl is like that. Flaws like non-fill, warped, off-center, contaminants, crappy sources like overcompressed digital files - all very common unfortunately. What record is this? Discogs link?

*ahem* https://www.discogs.com/Various-13-...x-Original-Series-Soundtrack/release/12418481 *ahem*
Feel like such a millennial posting that Only decided to give it a spin as it's one of the few new records in my collection. Some decent 80s tunes on there though.

To confuse things- it's a soft, crackling sound, not really a 'harshness' or 'scratchiness' like on some of my other records. I don't want to mislead as I'm inexperienced, but I don't think it really sounds like your classic mistracking. But the problem remains that it's mostly on loud bits. Very listenable still, but not when you're sat thinking your TT has a problem!
And as I say, I've now found that it's everywhere on the record, well Side A anyway. I have never played any other side in full.

Might I add that it has a slight warp and is a bit off center, but that shouldn't affect things should it?