mgkwackerd said:
I think you have to read reviews of "excellent re-issues" and then purchase by recommendation.
That's fine unless you also like to listen to new music. I've got back into buying vinyl, when possible, of new releases. My experience is highly variable, with many pressings being very noisy (clicks and pops), even after cleaning. Overall, I've found that the US pressings I've bought have been poorer quality than UK pressings, although of course there are better US pressings and worse UK pressings. Coloured/clear vinyl (there is a lot of this in new releases) tends also to be worse than black vinyl, but there have been expections - An Awesome Wave by Alt-J (white) and the Parlophone pressing of Hvarf/Heim by Sigur Rós (clear blue/green) are both amazing sound quality. (The US pressing of the Sigur Rós LP was awful, with what sounded like the old 'wow and flutter' you'd get on stretched audio tape, and it sounded as though it was mastered from the CD. On the UK pressing I hear detail I don't hear on the CD)
I always buy original copies of older material rather than reissues. The only excepction would be where the original is so sought-after that it goes for stupid prices. Even then, for older music, you might as well buy a reissue from the 80s second-hand as a modern pressing new. For most things you could probably get an 80s reissue for a few quid, versus £30+ for a modern 'audiophile' pressing. On balance, I'd go for the older reissue.
Things that affect how good or bad your music will sound:
1. The recording
2. The mixing
3. The mastering
4. The lacquer cutting
5. The pressing
6. The condition of the media (for vinyl, clean and scratch-free versus dirty and scratched)
7. The equipment you play it on
All bar the first two will be different for the vinyl copy than for the CD/digital copy. I think, although vinyl is making a come-back as a 'premium' format, that as there has been so little made over the past 20 years, the art of mastering for vinyl and pressing vinyl have rather died out, so there isn't the wide base of people with expertise that there used to be. Some studios and pressing plants will have people who are brilliant at their jobs; others, I suppose, less so. I don't know how to find out in advance where a copy was pressed (sometimes this information is given in the run-out grooves). One label whose new releases have been the most wonderful pressings has been Domino (I have the two Anna Calvi LPs and Immunity by Jon Hopkins). I don't know where these were pressed, but unfortunately I recently found out that they have just moved all their pressing to another plant. I hope the quality of their pressings won't be affected.
I don't recall ever receiving a pressing when I was buying most of my music in the 80s which was duff, although there were some which were faulty (scratched etc). I've been wondering about this more recently: whether it just was the case that because vinyl was the leading format, there was a lot more effort put into making it right; or whether my expectations were lower (didn't really think too much about some noise on the vinyl), and of course my equipment wasn't so good. Now I've returned to buying vinyl to get the best sound quality possible, I'm more critical. However, I have to say, most of my old 70s/80s pressings sound excellent on my new equipment.
I agree that the ideal is to be able to listen to pressings before buying, but of course that's not possible for all of us. If buying online via mail order, you do of course have the right to return a faulty product (which includes a poor pressing or a copy of a good pressing with a scratch in it) for a refund at the seller's expense, including postage costs. Before buying online it might be worth sounding out the seller regarding their policy on this, to get an idea of how likely they are to kick up a fuss about paying for the return postage.
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