Very disappointed, an LP stored in my loft for 20 years, given a quick brush off before being played sounds a damn site better than an LP I picked up last week from good old HMV.
Albums in question;
Bought in 1987 and in storage for 20 years - Fleetwood Mac - Tango in the Night
Bought in 2021 and stored for a week - Wings Over America ‘Definitive Concert Recording’
Tango is open fresh and clear, sure the odd crackle but still sounds superb, Paul on the other hand is hidden behind a heavy curtain muffled and constrained.
Why oh why is this the case, surely modern production methods should be able to emulate and maybe even improve upon pressings from 30+ years ago?
don´t know if it´s the same situation, but you refer to two diferent lp´s and knowing tango in the night when it came out i played it often and it was a "mainstream" production ,lot´s of dynamic, the other LP bought recentelly might not have the same dynamic in sound ,i had a "serious" problem around 2007 when changing to an old house that i had just bought and displayed around 50 of my favorite Lp´s in a shelf ,but the wall behind this piece of furniture had an infiltration of humidity, when puting there the furniture the paint looked dry but when one moves into the house starts to produce heat and i didn´t notice anything but the humidity was entering through the wood junctions and all those lp´s start to have a white mould that i didn´t notice because i was having lot´s of work and when listening to music i was using a litle system in my bedroom with some compilations i ´ve recorded into cassette , when for the first time ,already in summer i was going to play a joy division record because a kid that played in a band that i used to watch in a friends concert hall/ restaurant / wine house, never had heard a cassette or a record ,so one day he went to my house and when playing the record i notice some dried white moist in the record, the sound wasn´t that bad but i don´t like any type of noise on my records, the sound was detailed and loud but some crackle behind and i was almost mad with it when seeing other records and they were even worst , i clean them all but two i couldn´t restore it´s original sound ,one was the joy division "unknown pleasures"that i refer to and other was the"electric"from the cult . I asked my sister that lives in london to buy me those two ,when they arrived i liked the way they look and when playing them for the first time i notice a hiss or hum inbetween tracks but the sound was perfect ,that noise isn´t a old thing only new records have that noise ,and listening to my old records they didn´t make any noise inbetween tracks and the sound is perfect, is it a new thing ,new records having noise inbetween traacks and i´m not refering to have the ground wire disconected and having a constant noise, and this two lp´s when i started to buy cd´s i thought i had bought a bad cd player because the sound of this two records and many more in cd version were horrific , i have around 14 cd´s that i never played them they almost make me think ,if i was high when listening to them when new but it´s just the bad sound of cd´s, i use them to listen to music in my car stereo but at home the sound seems empty, guitars are in the back and distortion is not what is in the record ,this is only two examples but there´s a lot more lp´s that today´s digital version is not just bad it´s terrifying ,no wonder kids don´t like old music if i had heard them today i wouldn´t like the sound of the rape of music, about new vinyl it´s worst then the old if the old was good taken care of, i bought the other day a LP from the dexy´s midnight runners and it sounds fantastic it cost me 5€ in a big sell of used stuff, but new versions have that noise why, the music itself sounds good but inbetwwen, that low noise, and i have records bought in the 60´s that don´t make that noise. I live in a very hot and dry area and humidity it´s 0% in the air, so what are they doing when recording new versions of old records, one can buy old records but it´s not garanteed that the record doesn´t have problems ,and new are not that good .