The Idiot's Guide to Pressing Plants, Engineers, etc.

grendel627 said:
And I know MoFi has rightfully earned the ire of many for deceitful practices, but the Wunderlich cuts I have sound good to me. I'd rather see his name in the deadwax than McMaster's, whose cuts aren't bad but are often pretty generic and flat sounding to my ears.
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Yeah I was going to say I feel this list is slightly unfair to Kreig.
 
grendel627 said:
And I know MoFi has rightfully earned the ire of many for deceitful practices, but the Wunderlich cuts I have sound good to me. I'd rather see his name in the deadwax than McMaster's, whose cuts aren't bad but are often pretty generic and flat sounding to my ears.
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IMO, Krieg is good at a specific sound and not all that versatile. Good at some jazz, good at singer-songwriter kinda stuff. He's also had a buncha misses. Happy to move Ron down a peg.

edit: and bumped Krieg up
 
If anybody has pressing plant thoughts, lemme know and I'll add. That one is a bit trickier for me to divide into tiers...feel like there are mostly good ones and then avoids hah.
 
Joe Mac said:
Interesting, I was just trying to start conversation. My hot take is tier 1 doesn’t exist…
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I think the people in god level and tier 1 essentially are cases where I'd buy on sight if it's an album I like and I see those names in the dead wax or hype sticker.
 
D Jilla said:
A few other suggestions:
  • Tier 2 - consistently solid - Anne-Marie Suenram
  • Proceed with caution - Joe Reagoso
  • Avoid unless doing oddball US Beatles records - Kevin Reeves
George Horn should probably be somewhere, but don't have a strong enough opinion to know where
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fun fact -- GH isn't always George Horn on those OJCs...many are Gary Hobbish!
 
Good call on Simon Francis. I was like "who's the dude with all the incredible sounding Be With records?" - and there he is in Tier 1 already.
 
Jbraswell said:
Don't forget Piros
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which tier? i only really associate him with zeppelin but not super familiar with other cuts...

edit: this list skews toward mostly modern cutters....will happily go back and add some older ones.
 
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Some others I don't mind seeing...

Carl Rowatti - Trutone Mastering Labs
Heino Leja - Optimal in-house cut
Josh Bonati - Bonati Mastering


I'd say these are all high to mid tier.


Low tier would be

Dietrich Schoenemann - Complete Mastering (this could just be that most releases I have of his were done at shit pressing plants, like Kindercore/Classic City Vinyl Works)
 
LeeVing said:
Some others I don't mind seeing...

Carl Rowatti - Trutone Mastering Labs
Heino Leja - Optimal in-house cut
Josh Bonati - Bonati Mastering


I'd say these are all high to mid tier.


Low tier would be

Dietrich Schoenemann - Complete Mastering (this could just be that most releases I have of his were done at shit pressing plants, like Kindercore/Classic City Vinyl Works)
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great calls. added!
 
Joe Mac said:
So where do we put GZ…
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Maybe Tier 2? or tier 1.5? hah. They seem to have such varying degree of good to bad. Don't have many AMAZING GZ pressings, but have a decent amount of good ones. I don't think proceed with caution really fits as they arent on par with Third Man....some people swear that Third Man is okay but only the vault stuff has been pretty good for me.
 
MikeH said:
Maybe Tier 2? or tier 1.5? hah. They seem to have such varying degree of good to bad. Don't have many AMAZING GZ pressings, but have a decent amount of good ones. I don't think proceed with caution really fits as they arent on par with Third Man....some people swear that Third Man is okay but only the vault stuff has been pretty good for me.
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That’s kinda also how I feel about MPO.

Third Man is a weird one where I’ve very little but what I’ve had isn’t shit but it’s not terrible either, it’s just kinda fine. I know you hate them.

I also think that some of these bigger plants suffer not just from the inconsistency that comes with volume but also much more mixed sources given they’re not solely dealing with audiophile remasters.
 
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