Noisy vinyl from Classic Records

Sometimes vinyl can be damaged or forms wrong while waiting for packaging. It could have been stored incorrectly and has deformed or warped. Contact Classic Records and see if they have had any similar complaints. It could be a bad batch.

I think if you stick with LPs from the golden age (1945-70) you will find much better pressings with better sound even if they are in less good shape. The idea of a brand new LP is nice, but the art of pressing vinyl is long past.

Norah Jones is classic? Yikes!

I avoid Classic Records; they are all noisy. I only buy records pressed at RTI; they are always superbly done!

I beg to differ. Many of my Classic LPs are great sounding, including my copies of the first 2 Norah albums.
Yeah, I also love most of the RTI pressings, although a pet peeve that the cheap packaging of many of their albums doesn't match what you get from most other premium-priced reissues. Cheers,

Spencer

No more classic records for me,Zappa's Hot Rats had fingerprint grease and scratch.The company does not respond to me about poor quality. No top of that the sound quality was a total disappointment,all in all,a waste of money.

Most of the Classic records I've bought have a mild to substantial dish warp, and many suffer from excessive surface noise. The dish warp and swishing or crackling noise in one channel is usually caused by an insufficiently long pressing cycle. Thick vinyl is harder to press -- the record has to be heated longer and the cooldown has to be longer too. If the vinyl isn't given the full time to flow and form completely around the pressing die, noise is the result -- often primarily in one channel. I also dislike thick records because they screw up proper vertical tracking angle. I have yet to find a heavy vinyl record that demonstrates any superiority to some of the better, thin, Japanese pressings.

There may be hope for Classic Records. I have a few clear vinyl records that are well pressed (not the 45 rpm "Clarity" records). A friend collects the Clarity records, and those are terrific sounding pressings too.

"Left channel only" you say. Damage or defects in the vinyl groove would not be clever enough to affect only the groove modulation direction associated with the Left channel. The problem must be in the signal mix.

When a record is pressed, a small biscuit of vinyl is placed on the stamper and under pressure it oozes out to the edge. If this flow is not perfect, a condition, often referred to as non-fill, can result in noisy records. Typically the noise is at the beginning of the record, and often it affects one channel more than the other. It can sound like a lot of crackling or a tearing sort of sound (if severe).

I've heard mild forms of this on some Classic Records.

Their quality control sucks. Have two titles--terrible.

I have had very good luck with Classic Records. Out of over 250 records I have had only 2 with issues and they replaced them no problem. That includes 45"s and 33's, 180 & 200 gram. I have also found after playing most any record a few times they sound quieter. I try not to judge a record the first time I play it unless it skips or has severe groove error, I will try them again after a thorough cleaning.

I recently purchased Norah Jones' Not Too Late on "Clarity Vinyl" and was shocked at the amount of noise for a new record. Lots of surface noise and loud pops (I counted 11 on the first side). Sent it back to elusivedisc.com as a defective pressing and they sent me a replacement, which I received today. This one is not much better (5 loud pops on the first side, fair amount of surface noise). Very poor quality for a $33 record!

I am sorry for your experience Woodvale. I would say IMO that you should make it clear that this is not acceptable. As you stated this is a $33 album, which is premium price.

In their time LP recordings were amazing technology. They yield excellent sound, but with some degree of surface noise. The surface noise is an inherent characteristic of the technology, sliding contact between two physical objects. It can be minimized but never completely eliminated. Minimizing surface noise requires very sophisticated procedures, machines, and materials during manufacture.

Similar difficulties exist in the manufacture of CDs, which are pressed in a manner similar to LPs. However, there is a critical difference. The information on the CD is processed using an error correcting code so that defects in the physical disc do not result in any error on playback.

A comparison of these two media is a good example of two engineering approaches to quality. One, the LP, relies on superb specs on the physical item. This is costly, and can never be perfect. The other, CDs, recognizes that physical defects will exist, and designs a system in which physical defects (up to some point) don't matter.

In my profession (engineering missile guidance systems) I saw the philosophy change over several decades. When I started our guidance systems had many selected value trim resistors and a few trim pots that were individually tweeked during tests. We tried to be perfect. Now we have few if any selected value resistors, and no trim pots. Circuit designers have learned to make circuits that do not rely on exact component values. This may result in a more complex circuit, but since you can have thousands of transistors on a tiny chip, it's a good trade off.

I would take the album back to the store for a return or an exchange (whichever they offer). It is quite probable that there is something wrong with the vinyl.

I find all of Norah Jones's recordings (not many) sound like muffled garbage, its a shame. Her Digital recordings are much better.

Matt M

I hope that the phenomenon I have heard is the same as the OP. I believe it is a pressing problem and I also believe back in the 80's I saw it referred to in the Absolute Sound as stitching. A sometimes loud brief burst of distortion, usually confined to a single channel.

I hope that the phenomenon I have heard is the same as the OP. I believe it is a pressing problem and I also believe back in the 80's I saw it referred to in the Absolute Sound as stitching. A sometimes loud brief burst of distortion, usually confined to a single channel.

Reading through the posts... from chatta/10-13-09 _mattmiller/07-31-17

IM experience, the early Classics had pressing problems. So much so , they developed the Clarity process. Since then, I believe Chad bought the rights.

I thought this issue was long past.?

Only now, we have to deal with the lack of quality control from QPR. Very sad!

Give Classic Records a call, they were bought by Analogue productions back in 2010 and AP has all their old tube equipment and is still pressing under Classic Records. I just bought Doug Watkins Watkins at large it was a 2015 pressing on Classic Records and it sounds awesome! I believe they now have the pressing problems worked out.

i have not had one noisy one yet.  I must be lucky