"ROSSI J.A." <rossi@nusc.ARPA> (08/11/86)
Organization: Someone recently commented that repeated pressings of EMI-USA Lionheart were trash. I, for one, have an American pressing of Lionheart that is flawless (given what you would expect in production vinyl). About 10 years ago it was very noticable that non USA pressings of many albums were much better in sound quality than their American counterparts. Recently, I have noticed that this difference seems to be less apparant. Originally, the better quality of import pressings was attributed to smaller batch runs off the master disc. Possibly, the impoirts get as much use out of their mastrers as the USA companies do in todays 'buy-em-up' world. I have recently seen many defects in imported LPs that I have purchased and (without any real statistical manipulation) I believe that the quality of imports has sunken to the depth of the over used American pressing. Of course, this does not apply to all import labels, but Virgin, Island, Ohr and Infinity seem tyo be in the worst shape. It should be mentioned that bad 'batches' of a given LP can be releasaed without knowledge of the companies involved. It is not sufficient to buy repeated copies from the same dealer or from any other dealer in the area (which may, and probably is, supplied by the same distributor). One must go to someplace where a pressing from another 'batch' can be bought before the conclusion that all pressings of a particular title are bad. As for EMI-America's Lionheart pressings, all I cxan say is thjat I have a goiod one (purchased in New London, CT at Record World), and that, surely, others muyst exist. I thank Tim Wicinski for replying about meeting in Arlington in Aug. Just one point, however. I have gotten the accomodations via connections within the Guest Quarters chain. I could hardly afford tyhe cost of the rooms I am getting for a night, let alone a week. I, also, still drive a VW bus (not a BMW) which I will be taking to DC (equipped with all the ETOH varities I normally stock, however). No, I am not a Yuppie yet, shit I can hardly afford to keep up the payments on my 5 year old record collection loan. Hey, I got a babysitter for my kid for next Sat. Anybody else have any plans to go to Doug's then. John