Immerse Your Soul In Love - The Radiohead Thread

What I find interesting is that the general consensus on Radiohead pressings in the states is “meh.” I get high expectations but we got another meh pressing… maybe the fault is on us. Maybe if we just all refuse to buy an American copy of the Hail to the Chief green swirly vinyl, we can get them to get the point. XL isn’t reading the cogs reviews, they are counting the money they banked.

The inevitable overpriced meh Adele record isn’t going to do us weirdos any favors.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
The discussions regarding KID A MNESIA and Nevermind have me thinking about how the vinyl community reacts to reissues of highly regarded albums. With Nevermind you have what appears to be a seemingly decent reissue with a very vocal audiophile minority shitting on the pressing for what appears to slightly inferior remaster/recut while with KID A you have decent remaster with major QC issues effecting large swathes of the pressed albums but if you look at the online “noise” generated by both in the vinyl collecting community you would, at least initially; think both were equally disappointing, when in fact one is much worse than the other.

TL;DR: Record collecting is a strange hobby practiced by weirdos.
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Is the remaster decent too? I’m still waiting on mine but the reported distortion on HTDC sounds like it’s been cut too hot which is always more of a problem on an album that being squeezed onto 2 sides, which this is. Also BAZZA unfortunately has a habbit of cutting too hot. If only some mastering engineers would just chill and realise we all have a volume knob.
 
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My red version came today and seems to be Optimal. We tend to get EU vinyl here in the merry old land of Oz, thankfully.

Kid A is nice and silent but yeah, there is definitely distortion on How to Disappear Completely. It’s not a killer by any means but really, how the fuck did that pass quality checks with the test pressings? I kind of feel like there was some minor distortion in Motion Picture Soundtrack where the choir and the harp rock out but nothing too major. Not a fan of Untitled coming in hot and heavy after the peaceful swell of MPS fades out. Could they have not cut 30 seconds of silence into the vast ocean of dead wax before dropping that in? Only had some minor popping in the outro to Optimistic but nothing a good clean couldn’t fix, I’m sure.

Amnesiac is not as silent but still very good. Just some minor surface noise in the the quieter parts of Packt/Pyramid. but eases off by Pulk/Pull and You and Whose Army. I was I do have an OG euro 10” of this but I’d be interested to do an A/B comparison after a clean on my Hummnguru that comes this week.

The additional tracks disc have similar surface noise to Amnesiac. I’ve listened to these a few times via streaming on some speakers in my office but I’d missed so much not using headphones. I appreciate the songs a lot more now but feel it was a little underdeveloped. Having the B-sides to Pyramid Song and Knives Out would have been appreciated.
 
I’m sure everyone with bad pressings is being truthful and everything. It’s just seeing everything gave me extremely low expectations, so when I heard it I was shocked. I also am forgiving with minor issues and vinyl - but this to me doesn’t have issues. And I’m not super happy with some of Radiohead’s pressings. I got the big book version of AMSP and think it’s pretty rough, same with the standard pressing of In Rainbows. I just gotta say. I don’t know a lot about where it was pressed and everything, but I got mine from the UK and am happy with how it sounds. Sorry so many people have major issues with it.
 
I chalk some of it up to being rock music on vinyl. Should a record sound like a CD or digital stream in a case like this?

Or maybe my 56 year old, concert-worn ears don’t notice … 😵‍💫
 
Joe Mac said:
Is the remaster decent too? I’m still waiting on mine but the reported distortion on HTDC sounds like it’s been cut too hot which is always more of a problem on an album that being squeezed onto 2 sides, which this is. Also BAZZA unfortunately has a habbit of cutting too hot. If only some mastering engineers would just chill and realise we all have a volume knob.
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I don’t think it’s terrible, I guess it depends on how much the distortion on “How To Disappear Completely” bothers you.
 
TenderLovingKiller® said:
The discussions regarding KID A MNESIA and Nevermind have me thinking about how the vinyl community reacts to reissues of highly regarded albums. With Nevermind you have what appears to be a seemingly decent reissue with a very vocal audiophile minority shitting on the pressing for what appears to slightly inferior remaster/recut while with KID A you have decent remaster with major QC issues effecting large swathes of the pressed albums but if you look at the online “noise” generated by both in the vinyl collecting community you would, at least initially; think both were equally disappointing, when in fact one is much worse than the other.

TL;DR: Record collecting is a strange hobby practiced by weirdos.
Click to expand...
As places/people like The In Groove, 45RPM audiophile, and Hoffman accrue more acolytes, they take whatever those people say as gospel. But Mikefromtheingroovephoenixarizona can't seem to be unbiased due to being shorted most of the 500 copies he ordered of Nirvana. The VU half speeds are also good sounding to me despite 45RPM guy saying they are unlistenable and saying that Miles Showell should be ashamed of himself haha. Nirvana sounds very good to my ears. Dead quiet, flat, nice quality jacket and am more than happy with it for $30 even if its from digital.

As prices go up on vinyl, I don't blame people for trusting others' opinions on records and it's pretty easy to find reviews on most new records these days on youtube from people who people seem to trust. But I'd rather listen to opinions from people on here instead of some of those youtube channels lately or discogs. Nobody here really has an agenda (aside from me always pushing boomboom 😂 ). It's pretty wild for people to be posting discogs reviews of a pressing having never heard the record (happened with Nirvana). There seem to be enough reports of bad pressings for Radiohead to make me nervous about the Scarry pressing but I don't doubt that people may have gotten some decent or maybe even good copies. QC has also been way worse and less consistent across the board in the past two years. I have even gotten some duds from the tried and true places like Pallas in the past 2 years.
 
MikeH said:
As places/people like The In Groove, 45RPM audiophile, and Hoffman accrue more acolytes, they take whatever those people say as gospel. But Mikefromtheingroovephoenixarizona can't seem to be unbiased due to being shorted most of the 500 copies he ordered of Nirvana. The VU half speeds are also good sounding to me despite 45RPM guy saying they are unlistenable and saying that Miles Showell should be ashamed of himself haha. Nirvana sounds very good to my ears. Dead quiet, flat, nice quality jacket and am more than happy with it for $30 even if its from digital.

As prices go up on vinyl, I don't blame people for trusting others' opinions on records and it's pretty easy to find reviews on most new records these days on youtube from people who people seem to trust. But I'd rather listen to opinions from people on here instead of some of those youtube channels lately or discogs. Nobody here really has an agenda (aside from me always pushing boomboom 😂 ). It's pretty wild for people to be posting discogs reviews of a pressing having never heard the record (happened with Nirvana). There seem to be enough reports of bad pressings for Radiohead to make me nervous about the Scarry pressing but I don't doubt that people may have gotten some decent or maybe even good copies. QC has also been way worse and less consistent across the board in the past two years. I have even gotten some duds from the tried and true places like Pallas in the past 2 years.
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I’d hope given it’s optimal that it would be more consistently good across the board. Some of the complaints do sound like mastering to me though so that has me worried.

TenderLovingKiller® said:
I don’t think it’s terrible, I guess it depends on how much the distortion on “How To Disappear Completely” bothers you.
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It’s one of my top 5-10 songs of all time…

I do hate distortion on high notes though, especially if it’s sibilant. Mastering hot is increasingly another bug bear of mine. I’ll judge it when my scary arrives but I am tentative, rather than excited, now. If only all records were mastered and pressed like Loveless…
 
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Kid Amnesia arrived today. Not sure how to handle this. The jacket arrived with damage. All the inner sleeves are blown out with 3 inch splits, which is a bummer given the artwork on them. Normally I'd just live with the jacket damage but it was $60.

Kid A has a serrated edge that I could chop vegetables with. Kid A is also somewhat off center but not terribly noticeable (feeling lucky there...off center pressings are the worst). Some minor distortion on HTDC. It doesn't sound greeeeat, but I was expecting far worse given all the negative reviews. None of the records appear warped. Only spun Side A thus far of Kid A. Sounds kind of meh. Has some pops and clicks, lots of dimples, and Side B has a light scratch across Morning Bell, hoping it's inaudible. Not sure if I want to deal with a return, but may just live with this shit.

I also received the new VMP Mars Volta repress. NOT looking forward to spinning that, because I doubt it'll be improved. Also both discs appear bowl warped, so there's that. Probably have to contact VMP customer service again.

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zdkaiser said:
Kid Amnesia arrived today. Not sure how to handle this. The jacket arrived with damage. All the inner sleeves are blown out with 3 inch splits, which is a bummer given the artwork on them. Normally I'd just live with the jacket damage but it was $60.

Kid A has a serrated edge that I could chop vegetables with. Kid A is also somewhat off center but not terribly noticeable (feeling lucky there...off center pressings are the worst). Some minor distortion on HTDC. It doesn't sound greeeeat, but I was expecting far worse given all the negative reviews. None of the records appear warped. Only spun Side A thus far of Kid A. Sounds kind of meh. Has some pops and clicks, lots of dimples, and Side B has a light scratch across Morning Bell, hoping it's inaudible. Not sure if I want to deal with a return, but may just live with this shit.

I also received the new VMP Mars Volta repress. NOT looking forward to spinning that, because I doubt it'll be improved. Also both discs appear bowl warped, so there's that. Probably have to contact VMP customer service again.

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where did you order from? depending on who, i will sometime ask for a partial refund for sleeve damage.
 
Joe Mac said:
I’d hope given it’s optimal that it would be more consistently good across the board. Some of the complaints do sound like mastering to me though so that has me worried.



It’s one of my top 5-10 songs of all time…

I do hate distortion on high notes though, especially if it’s sibilant. Mastering hot is increasingly another bug bear of mine. I’ll judge it when my scary arrives but I am tentative, rather than excited, now. If only all records were mastered and pressed like Loveless…
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You don't have your copy yet? The distortion on HTDC is not quite sillibance to me but more of a digitally-sounding screech if that makes any sense. I think one could maybe accept it if this is not a beloved record. But I'd guess you would not. My copy had so many other QC issues that this is secondary (and I'll likely never listen to that copy), but I'm not sure I'd be happy even if this was the only flaw.
 
Turbo said:
You don't have your copy yet? The distortion on HTDC is not quite sillibance to me but more of a digitally-sounding screech if that makes any sense. I think one could maybe accept it if this is not a beloved record. But I'd guess you would not. My copy had so many other QC issues that this is secondary (and I'll likely never listen to that copy), but I'm not sure I'd be happy even if this was the only flaw.
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I got the scary book pressing. It doesn’t ship till late November even over here so I’m guessing I’m not going to get it for at least 3 or 4 weeks yet!
 
zdkaiser said:
Kid Amnesia arrived today. Not sure how to handle this. The jacket arrived with damage. All the inner sleeves are blown out with 3 inch splits, which is a bummer given the artwork on them. Normally I'd just live with the jacket damage but it was $60.

Kid A has a serrated edge that I could chop vegetables with. Kid A is also somewhat off center but not terribly noticeable (feeling lucky there...off center pressings are the worst). Some minor distortion on HTDC. It doesn't sound greeeeat, but I was expecting far worse given all the negative reviews. None of the records appear warped. Only spun Side A thus far of Kid A. Sounds kind of meh. Has some pops and clicks, lots of dimples, and Side B has a light scratch across Morning Bell, hoping it's inaudible. Not sure if I want to deal with a return, but may just live with this shit.

I also received the new VMP Mars Volta repress. NOT looking forward to spinning that, because I doubt it'll be improved. Also both discs appear bowl warped, so there's that. Probably have to contact VMP customer service again.

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New Mars Volta repress???
 
zdkaiser said:
Yeah, De-Loused was repressed by VMP due to defects and loud surface noise. I'm 3 copies in, all with the same issue. They said they fixed the issue and sent out new copies to all members that had the problem.
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Yikes. I haven’t listened to my copy yet cause I’ve been waiting to have the space to absorb it all. No idea if mine has that issue or not
 
zdkaiser said:
Yeah, De-Loused was repressed by VMP due to defects and loud surface noise. I'm 3 copies in, all with the same issue. They said they fixed the issue and sent out new copies to all members that had the problem.
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Apparently not ALL members because I haven't heard squat since they told me I was on the list.
 
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