Record quality

[discohunter]

Since the people here are from all over the world, I would be interested in hearing peoples experiences either in their own country or from pressing from overseas. sooo....

What country do you find have the best quality (and for that matter, worse) pressings of 12"s?

discohunter

[Forrrce]

I think there was a similar thread to this quite recently. Still, I would say that European pressings tended to be best, at least until the late '80s. I don't think there's much in it now, however. Although they were generally thinner, UK and German pressings tended to be cleaner and brighter than their US counterparts. There used to be clear differences in UK and US issues of the same track, with the latter almost always being treble-light and even muddy. I once read that this was because US cutting engineers would boost the bottom end and cut the top by something like 3 dB respectively, whilst UK engineers did the opposite.

Just for the record, I think Classic Records in the 'States make the finest pressings available today.

[QUINNY]

I'd agree with Forrrce that UK pressings were almost always better than their US equivalents. It's possibly a subjective thing though, as I'm sure that most UK/European pressings may have appeared overly bright to American ears, that had known nothing other than their home grown product.