Are there known issues with ECM 180g reissue LP's

[CJ Shearn]

Yesterday I was at a friend's listening to his Focal Aria 948 speakers with a Marantz pre amp and Rotel amp.  His vinyl set up is a Pro Jeff Debut Carbon Esprit turntable with an Ortofon 2M Blue cartridge powered by qProject Phono Box S Black pre amp and Audioquest Evergreen RCA cables, out of the pre amp connected to the Marantz.  Now we played his brand new 180g pressing of PMG's "Travels"  it sounded awful, so noisy, like Rice Krispies.   When I bought original Metheny ECM's in college on vinyl, they were all in terrific condition but sounded so noisy. I recall some ECM vinyl at WHRW my college radio station when I at Binghamton University living up to the pristine sound reputation, but the 180g vinyl reissues, where are they pressed? Pallas? Is this just a case of him getting just a dud pressing?

[sidewinder]

Don’t have any of the 180gs but the original Metheny German ECMs are all dead quiet and with exemplary sonics. I do have a couple of North American ‘original’ ECMs which are nowhere near as good - significant noise.

The one I particularly like on the original ECM vinyl is ‘Rejoicing’. Billy Higgins never sounded better.

Edited May 21, 2018 by sidewinder

[mjazzg]

I bought Carla Bley's "Andando El Tiempo" from the ECM rep at a gig. Horrible pressing fault on it which he initially denied could exixt but eventually admitted when he received more complaints. Quality control is high as we all know at ECM but occasionally...

[CJ Shearn]

Thanks everyone!  I don't do vinyl personally,,. but hearing my friend's system was an eye opener.  After Travels, he put on Bem Gosin, an independently produced Funana record he bought in Portugal and the difference was stunning, very quiet pressing.

[mikeweil]

10 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Don’t have any of the 180gs but the original Metheny German ECMs are all dead quiet and with exemplary sonics. I do have a couple of North American ‘original’ ECMs which are nowhere near as good - significant noise.

Same observation here.

[Clunky]

10 hours ago, sidewinder said:

Don’t have any of the 180gs but the original Metheny German ECMs are all dead quiet and with exemplary sonics. I do have a couple of North American ‘original’ ECMs which are nowhere near as good - significant noise.

 

I’ve heard/ had relatively few USA ECM vinyls. I’d agree that they’re not as good as their German counterparts but none were significantly noisy. Possibly I have been lucky. The only disappointing modern vinyl editions I’ve had have been from No Business and that’s been limited to just a couple of titles.

[clifford_thornton]

5 minutes ago, Clunky said:

The only disappointing modern vinyl editions I’ve had have been from No Business and that’s been limited to just a couple of titles.

my issues with NB seem to be on the side of mastering, which I believe they often do from MP3s or similarly compressed files.

[Clunky]

17 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said:

my issues with NB seem to be on the side of mastering, which I believe they often do from MP3s or similarly compressed files.

I didn’t know that but I’m not too surprised. Really none of their LPs have sounded sonically excellent. Take their issue of The Delaware River sounds nowhere near as rich as Chuck’s recording from the same tour. Obviously other factors such as venue could have impacted on the final result. 

[sidewinder]

1 hour ago, Clunky said:

I’ve heard/ had relatively few USA ECM vinyls. I’d agree that they’re not as good as their German counterparts but none were significantly noisy. Possibly I have been lucky. The only disappointing modern vinyl editions I’ve had have been from No Business and that’s been limited to just a couple of titles.

The US pressing noise wasn’t catastrophic but it was there - the ones I have are 70s pressings so the ‘oil crisis’ could have been a factor.

[mjzee]

3 hours ago, sidewinder said:

The US pressing noise wasn’t catastrophic but it was there - the ones I have are 70s pressings so the ‘oil crisis’ could have been a factor.

The first ECM LPs in the U.S. were Polydor pressings, which were crackly, noisy, warpy, etc.  Around 1976, Polydor switched to Columbia pressings and quality improved.  But then ECM moved to Warner Bros. distribution, and pressings were amazing.

[JSngry]

Don't know anything about the Columbia pressings, but for sure enough do recall those early Polydor pressings being total crap & WB being much better. Also recall getting a German pressing of Ruta and Dayita in a cutout bin (however it got there, I still can't figure) in the early 70s that was obscenely quiet, i mean, i though the turntable had stopped until the music started playing. Also had a couple of buddies in the later 70s who had the money to only buy ECM imports to play on their much-better-than-mine system, and that shit was just STOOOPID clean!

[Chuck Nessa]

53 minutes ago, mjzee said:

The first ECM LPs in the U.S. were Polydor pressings, which were crackly, noisy, warpy, etc.  Around 1976, Polydor switched to Columbia pressings and quality improved.  But then ECM moved to Warner Bros. distribution, and pressings were amazing.

 

54 minutes ago, mjzee said:

The first ECM LPs in the U.S. were Polydor pressings, which were crackly, noisy, warpy, etc.  Around 1976, Polydor switched to Columbia pressings and quality improved.  But then ECM moved to Warner Bros. distribution, and pressings were amazing.

The WB pressings were from Wakefield, the plant I used most of the time.

[spinlps]

Small sample answer for the OP - I have a copy of Jarrett / Haden "Last Dance." Its a 2LP set and both discs are flat, hefty, and dead quiet.

I may pull the trigger on the Iyer and Sheppard LP's released this spring. ECM's vinyl release schedule, at least for spring 2018, seems pretty aggressive compared to other labels. They also state that reissues of older material is form the original analog tapes, whatever that might mean these days.