New vinyl's noisy little secret

Bosrt, You have evidently adopted a very onerous way to clean your LPs. With my VPI HW17, it never takes more than a total of 5-6 minutes to clean both sides, using my conventional cleaner (dilute non-ionic detergent in a water/alcohol mix). If I am using the Walker Audio enzyme-based cleaning method, it takes only a little bit longer (for the extra steps). I cannot imagine spending 20-25 minutes to clean one LP.

Kipdent, it's funny (to me) that you should mention this. Last night I played a Columbia LP I bought used for a few bucks some years ago, Dexter Gordon Quartet/Manhattan Symphonie. I was pleasantly surprised at the quiet and the quality of this pressing, altho there were a few crackles at the beginning of the first cut ("As Time Goes By"). George Cables piano playing on this LP is superb, not to mention the work of DG. Then I remembered having seen the re-issue for sale just recently, for $34, while I was placing an order with MusicDirect. And I was wondering whether that (new) pressing could possibly sound any better. (Mine is a "promotion"/"not for sale" copy; those usually do sound better than run of the mill pressings.)

Forty years ago, LPs cost $3 to $6. I used to save my money to buy just one at a time back then. I suppose if you correct for inflation that the cost was even higher than that of a CD today.

I read something, somewhere that discussed the new vs old pressing plants. In the old days they wer running full stream every day. The presses were making thousands of records a day.

These days the plants are making only hundreds of records in small, custom batches. As a result the presses are barely warmed up before they are finished with the run. As a result the vinyl isn't flowing as smoothly and imperfections are more prominent.

Now I have no freakin idea if this theory holds and water at all, but it seemed plausable to me when I read it.

Bob

Other issues aside, if you want to reap the sonic benefits of vinyl, you had best always be prepared to clean as needed first before panicking when something doesn't sound right.

Having said that, when I used to buy new records, my expectation was that they at least started clean, but I know even then that that was not always necessarily the case.

I purchase approx. one new album /month and frankly am astonished at the condition these sealed records arrive. Everything from fingerprints, smears,smudges and always a good coating of loose cardboard dust. I would never subject my cart to this gunk so I always steam clean before using.
I wonder what the process of loading an album into its packaging is, anyone know? The last album i got was Dave Mathews latest and it was horrible when I opened it. Fortunately after a cleaning it played perfect and was nice and flat, otherwise back it goes. They look as though they were packaged by monkeys that just finished wrestling in mud.

Yes, good quality vinyl, for the purpose of making records, is no longer available. I read an interesting article about a new pressing facility in New York City. The proprietors admit that even the best vinyl they can buy falls short of the quality that could easily be had years ago. They compensate, as well as they can, by taking the new stock and "regrinding" it themselves (not talking about using old records that have been ground up to make new records, but carefully grinding virgin vinyl to achieve the right consistency).