Immerse Your Soul In Love - The Radiohead Thread

dbarila said:
People seem to be mentioning off center pressings. That's no good. Maybe I shouldn't cancel my Scarry Book just yet.
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Complaints on Red that it's noisy. Black seems to sound great except on How to Disappear which is prone to distortion (according to 4 comments).

Edit-- it's really kinda nuts how hard it is to find quality pressings of their work in the US.
 
Mather said:
We still haven't confirmed if the US and EU pressings are different though I don't think?
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Yeah. No idea. Just know that all the U.K. releases handled by, is it Polydor?, sound great and all the ones handled in the states sound mediocre to straight trash.

XL sucks in general. The most disappointing pressing I've ever purchased were the OK Computer + B-Sides and Jamie Xx: In Coulor Deluxe. Both were $40-- both are noisy as hell and of poor mastering.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Yeah. No idea. Just know that all the U.K. releases handled by, is it Polydor?, sound great and all the ones handled in the states sound mediocre to straight trash.

XL sucks in general. The most disappointing pressing I've ever purchased were the OK Computer + B-Sides and Jamie Xx: In Coulor Deluxe. Both were $40-- both are noisy as hell and of poor mastering.
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Nope XL here too. The optimal EU used to be less unacceptable than the Rainbo US but now it’s optimal across the board.

For old pressings pre 2016 the EU Parlophone pressings absolutely smoked the Capitol ones you got:

Also, and not using this as an excuse, remember to wash them really well, XL Radiohead have used proper shit paper sleeves to date and they need washing well and putting in clean sleeves rather than reusing them.
 
Joe Mac said:
Nope XL here too. The optimal EU used to be less unacceptable than the Rainbo US but now it’s optimal across the board.

For old pressings pre 2016 the EU Parlophone pressings absolutely smoked the Capitol ones you got:

Also, and not using this as an excuse, remember to wash them really well, XL Radiohead have used proper shit paper sleeves to date and they need washing well and putting in clean sleeves rather than reusing them.
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Parlophone. Thank you. I have their OK Computer re-issue plus an O.G. Hail to the Thief, and ya, they are among the best sounding records I own-- though the Hail has years of wear on it at this point.

Major bummer XL is now doing all the pressings.
 
DownIsTheNewUp said:
Parlophone. Thank you. I have their OK Computer re-issue plus an O.G. Hail to the Thief, and ya, they are among the best sounding records I own-- though the Hail has years of wear on it at this point.

Major bummer XL is now doing all the pressings.
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Yeah! Sadly Parlophone fucked the band off with the contract negotiations before In Rainbows so they didn’t re-sign. They then fucked them off more by cashing in on that success with the god awful best of and extended CDs of the first 6 albums. They were never re-signing even the distribution for the old stuff after that.

It seems that XL are a really well run artist friendly label, everyone on them seems to love them. Unfortunately their pressings are crap. Similar to, but nowhere near as bad as Secretly Group, them and Sacred Bones routinely shit out the worst pressings I own.
 
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FWIW Discogs are confirming the US ones are United and I got Unite'd. Haven't listened further yet but Kid A is hysterically off-center. Going to wait on @Ethos99 to see if there's a lot of complaints before requesting a replacement.

Also, weirder note but the "secret noise" after "Motion Picture Soundtrack" unceremoniously starts immediately after rather than a bit of silence, or a locked groove like the OG. Not sure I like it, although I can get why they didn't try to hide it this time.

And for @Mather : I don't have the XL 12" though i'd love to compare sometime, but first impressions: more natural EQ and generally easier to track than the OG but not as dynamic. I need to do an A/B, preferably with a centered copy, before committing. But Amnesiac is the one I have real doubt the new one will top.
 
Some folks are receiving records with two copies of the Kid A disc and no Amnesiac.

United strikes again...


For once dear god, would you please grace us simple folk, your North Americans, with a clean, Pallas-pressed Radiohead album? No more Rainbo. No more United. No more need to import a European copy because, well, the US copy sounds just fine. Please I beg of you. Amen.
 
Phaneronic said:
FWIW Discogs are confirming the US ones are United and I got Unite'd. Haven't listened further yet but Kid A is hysterically off-center. Going to wait on @Ethos99 to see if there's a lot of complaints before requesting a replacement.

Also, weirder note but the "secret noise" after "Motion Picture Soundtrack" unceremoniously starts immediately after rather than a bit of silence, or a locked groove like the OG. Not sure I like it, although I can get why they didn't try to hide it this time.

And for @Mather : I don't have the XL 12" though i'd love to compare sometime, but first impressions: more natural EQ and generally easier to track than the OG but not as dynamic. I need to do an A/B, preferably with a centered copy, before committing. But Amnesiac is the one I have real doubt the new one will top.
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Where are you seeing the United confirmation? I couldn't find anything that indicates that? (I don't have the album)

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to determine whether the older Amnesiac 2 LP 45 is the Optimal pressing instead of the GZ?
 
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Joe Mac said:
Nope XL here too. The optimal EU used to be less unacceptable than the Rainbo US but now it’s optimal across the board.

For old pressings pre 2016 the EU Parlophone pressings absolutely smoked the Capitol ones you got:

Also, and not using this as an excuse, remember to wash them really well, XL Radiohead have used proper shit paper sleeves to date and they need washing well and putting in clean sleeves rather than reusing them.
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Always clean your records and never put them back in the original sleeves, they are covered in whatever muck you just cleaned off.

These are in printed inners, feel like magazine paper. I’ll check runouts when I clean them.

I like the nifty bespoke trifold. Wish there were credits/liner notes.
 
Mather said:
Where are you seeing the United confirmation? I couldn't find anything that indicates that? (I don't have the album)

Also, does anyone know if it's possible to determine whether the older Amnesiac 2 LP 45 is the Optimal pressing instead of the GZ?
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So there's someone on Discogs in a reply who I assume works at a record store talking about it being definitely United and having to replace copies, no idea what their method is but it could be the same as mine, which is to look at the indentations in the label. Not scientific I know but it's actually really reliable. I'll take photos in the morning to explain myself. There's also something about the look of the vinyl itself, but I don't have good words for it and I don't know how clearly it'd photograph...
 
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