I have an analogue vinyl playback rig that sounds best when playing AAA vinyl, especially those recording labels that go the extra distance to make sure they are cutting the best they are capable of.
I have sometimes been lucky in my purchases (Classic Records Clarity) and unlucky as well (MoFi Ultradisc One-Step's), but there have been two recent purchases from record companies that I would like to share with this august group, namely: The Electric Recording Company and Craft Recordings, specifically their "Small Batch, One-Step Pressings".
I made my first purchase of an "Electric Recording Company" pressing (ERC089 - Piano Concertos Played by Samson François and conducted by Andre' Cluytens) in late April and received it a week ago. It sounds great, the best quality of recording I have ever owned, but cost me more than £400. I think most of you will have looked at their web-site and seen how much effort went into making these records.
Then I bought two "Craft, small-batch, one-step" records (Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus) at a cost of $109.99 each (plus shipping)
(Technical Info):
"Craft Small Batch is a. carefully curated audiophile series that is devoted to creating the highest quality reissues of legendary recordings from. the Craft Recordings catalog. For this reissue, the original master tapes were sent to Bernie Grundman for all-analog mastering, where he utilised a custom tube pre-amp and analog mixing console with discreet electronics that were both made in-house, as well as a Scully solid-state lathe with custom electronics. Lacquers were sent to Record Technology Incorporated (RTI) for plating using their one-step process, where the lacquers are used to create a "convert" that becomes the record stamper. Finally, the records were pressed on 180-gram vinyl, utilising Neotech's VR900 compound."
"Using RTI's one-step lacquer process instead of the standard three-step process allows us to bypass two stages of generational loss and produce the highest level of musical detail, clarity and dynamics, while reducing the amount of surface noise on the record and generating the lowest noise floor that is currently possible. The limited nature of these pressings guarantees that each record is a true representation of the original lacquer and is as close as the listener can get to the original recording."
The Craft records are really cool, ribbon pull slides the record out of the external box, the vinyl itself is a smokey translucent disc that one can see through. I have listened to these back and forth and personally can't hear a lot of difference in the quality. From the limited examples I own I really can't make a fair judgement of which is best, it is that close, but if pushed, I would hesitantly nod to the ERC record (at four times the price). So, for those of you looking for the absolute best in terms of quality analogue vinyl, you can't go wrong here.
I have sometimes been lucky in my purchases (Classic Records Clarity) and unlucky as well (MoFi Ultradisc One-Step's), but there have been two recent purchases from record companies that I would like to share with this august group, namely: The Electric Recording Company and Craft Recordings, specifically their "Small Batch, One-Step Pressings".
I made my first purchase of an "Electric Recording Company" pressing (ERC089 - Piano Concertos Played by Samson François and conducted by Andre' Cluytens) in late April and received it a week ago. It sounds great, the best quality of recording I have ever owned, but cost me more than £400. I think most of you will have looked at their web-site and seen how much effort went into making these records.
Then I bought two "Craft, small-batch, one-step" records (Relaxin' with the Miles Davis Quintet, and Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus) at a cost of $109.99 each (plus shipping)
(Technical Info):
"Craft Small Batch is a. carefully curated audiophile series that is devoted to creating the highest quality reissues of legendary recordings from. the Craft Recordings catalog. For this reissue, the original master tapes were sent to Bernie Grundman for all-analog mastering, where he utilised a custom tube pre-amp and analog mixing console with discreet electronics that were both made in-house, as well as a Scully solid-state lathe with custom electronics. Lacquers were sent to Record Technology Incorporated (RTI) for plating using their one-step process, where the lacquers are used to create a "convert" that becomes the record stamper. Finally, the records were pressed on 180-gram vinyl, utilising Neotech's VR900 compound."
"Using RTI's one-step lacquer process instead of the standard three-step process allows us to bypass two stages of generational loss and produce the highest level of musical detail, clarity and dynamics, while reducing the amount of surface noise on the record and generating the lowest noise floor that is currently possible. The limited nature of these pressings guarantees that each record is a true representation of the original lacquer and is as close as the listener can get to the original recording."
The Craft records are really cool, ribbon pull slides the record out of the external box, the vinyl itself is a smokey translucent disc that one can see through. I have listened to these back and forth and personally can't hear a lot of difference in the quality. From the limited examples I own I really can't make a fair judgement of which is best, it is that close, but if pushed, I would hesitantly nod to the ERC record (at four times the price). So, for those of you looking for the absolute best in terms of quality analogue vinyl, you can't go wrong here.
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