Record Store Day

Is this a dumb question?

:unsure:

Mainly by doing your research.

There are Matrix #s/letters/initials of mastering engineers etc.in the dead wax (inner space next to the record label. They all have meaning. You have to do research as to their meaning.

Go to Discogs many forums or just do a Google.search. It's time consuming but you have to put the effort in.

Thanks slaw!

:thumbsup:

You can get tons of info on different pressings over on the Steve Hoffman forum.

over the years music can get remixed and remastered for different pressings the Hoffman forum has info on this and which sounds best.

enjoy

@johnto - particularly the older threads on Hoffman where people who had done shoot-outs of various pressings offered their views. Often, it was different shadings or points of emphasis among the better copies rather than dramatic differences, though there are some, e.g., the RL of LZII that are often considered by many to be top copies. 

I went through a long period of discovery on my own, learning to decode dead wax and making the connection between a particular pressing and its sonics. That's the hard part- you either have to rely on anecdotal from others who have made studied comparisons or do them yourself. I did a fairly basic primer on this a decade ago: https://thevinylpress.com/buying-used-records-a-primer/

Even that is dated to some extent, e.g. the Piros cut of LZ1 on Monarch (a pressing plant) was bettered by a 2nd Japanese pressing, which at the time, cost me about $30 US. 

Perhaps the biggest change since I wrote that is grading and price inflation in the market as well as the scarcity of "good" copies--depending on what one is hunting for, the records simply aren't out there, or are in the hands of specialty shops that fetch very high dollars for a particular copy.