Bad Records

Debuting not a moment too soon.

We are having a hard time keeping up with all the bad sounding records being made these days.

Below you will find links to records that audiophiles with a desire for top quality sound would be wise to avoid.

Those of you who enjoy collecting records — on Heavy Vinyl and otherwise — strictly for the sake of collecting are going to end up with a lot of the titles we criticize here.

If Heavy Vinyl sounds just fine to you, and your stereo stays at the level it is now and never improves significantly, the faults of these modern reissues should stay safely hidden from you, which simply means that you can enjoy collecting them to your heart’s delight.

We encourage music loving audiophiles to take a different approach, one that has the potential to pay big musical and audio dividends in the future.

Just added in 2026

Audiophile Pressings with Bad Sound

  1. Audiophile Bullsh*t Records

These are some of the most shameful examples of audiophile bullshit on vinyl we have ever played. Why some audiophiles find this crap appealing is a mystery to us.

  1. Heavy Vinyl Disasters

The worst of these that we’ve reviewed in 2024/2025/2026 can be found here. This is the kind of garbage they want audiophiles to buy? Equal parts ridiculous and insulting.

  1. Half-Speed Mastered Disasters

The worst sounding Half-Speeds we’ve reviewed in 2024 can be found here.

Vintage Classical Pressings with Weak Sound or Performances

  1. Weak Decca/London Pressings
  2. Weak Mercury Pressings
  3. Weak RCA Pressings
  4. Weak Classical Pressings, All Labels

Original Jazz Classics

Vintage Pressings with Weak Sound or Music

The Worst of the Worst

Here you will find the worst sounding versions of this select group of albums that we’ve ever played. Until something worse comes along — something that is practically guaranteed considering the consistently poor quality of the modern vinyl reissue — these are really the pits. You will find a great many audiophile records listed here, something that may be disappointing but, to those of us who have been doing this for a very long time, not the least bit surprising.

I Can’t Believe I Used to Like These

In my formative years as an audiophile and record collector, I used to like a lot of records that sound awful to me now. If you are playing your old records regularly, and making improvements to your analog playback, you should find plenty to dislike in the records you once loved. Don’t let it get you down. Celebrate it. It’s a sign of progress.

Digitally Remastered Records with Bad Sound

Titles with a “New Sound” We Didn’t Care For

  1. Records with New Sound

Records with Modern Sound We Don’t Like

This is definitely not our sound. We prefer our records to sound like good vintage pressings.

Records Better Suited to the Systems of the 60s and 70s

If you haven’t participated in the revolutionary advancements that have occurred in audio over the last thirty or so years, the records you see in the list above are probably going to sound fine to you. If you own any of these titles, you might want to play them and see if the faults we ascribe to them are as obvious to you as they are to us.

The world is full of them.