Last week I was at the local record store and browsing though the "newly arrived" used records and something made me check out a particularly bad looking Dark Side Of the Moon.
I think it was the fact that they were asking $30 bucks for an album that had a terrible cover, I thought it was a mistake, but it wasn't.
When I took the record out, I realized it was first pressing from 1973, and even though it was dusty, it looked amost new. I played it on in the store, and it sounded fine, but I knew I wouldn't really to be able to tell if it was noisy or not until I got home, cleaned it Walker/VPI 16.5, and it's just sublime. Much less noisy than any of the 3 "new" copies I have tried this year.
It does sound different from the new pressings, it's more open and extended, not at warm. Not better or worse, just different.
What a find.
