Hot Stamper Pressings of the Music of Tchaikovsky Available Now
This record has no marks that play appreciably, but that RCA vinyl is up to its old tricks again.
Mint Minus Minus with constant light surface noise underneath the music in the quieter sections is the rule here. The first half inch of side two is where you will notice it the most.
We are of the opinion that good sound and good music allow you to pretty much ignore surfaces such as these, scratches being another thing entirely of course. If there is any problem, you are covered by our money back guarantee.
Better Front Ends
I would make the further point that the better your front end is, the less likely you are to have a problem with vinyl like this, which is the opposite of what many audiophiles perceive to be the case. In other words, some of the cheaper tables and carts seem to make the surface noise more objectionable, not less.
On the other hand, some pricey cartridges — the Benz line comes to mind — are consistently noisier than those by Dynavector, Lyra and others, in our experience anyway.
Vintage Vinyl
As long as vintage vinyl is the only vinyl with sound worth pursuing, as is surely the case these days and will be the case for the forseeable future, a quiet cartridge and a very high quality arm are essential to high quality playback.
Our Dynavector 17Dx gets down deep into the groove, where vintage used records have the least number of problems created by their previous owners.
Further Reading