Vinyl Mysteries and Knowledge

We recently created a number of sections under the heading of Arcana. Arcana is defined by the Free Dictionary on the web as:

1. A deep secret; a mystery.
2. Specialized knowledge or details unknown to or misunderstood by the average person.

When it comes to “knowledge or details unknown to or misunderstood by the average person” — in this case, the average audiophile — we believe we are uniquely qualified to discuss such things, owing to the fact that we seem to be the only record reviewers currently using rigorous controls, blinded experiments and the scientific method to arrive at reproducible results not limited by the reader’s (assuming it is sufficiently advanced) analog playback system.

Much of what we have written is here on the blog to help the serious, dedicated “lover of sound” find a better way to discover it for himself, starting with:

If your equipment (regardless of cost) or your critical listening skills do not allow you to hear the kinds of sonic differences among pressings we describe, then whether you are just getting started in audio or are a self-identified Audio Expert writing for the most prestigious magazines and websites, there is much work to be done to achieve higher quality sound.

Those who follow older audiophile approaches will benefit from a greater reliance on empirical testing and less on conventional thinking and received wisdom.

Conducting your own experiments with records is the only sure way to learn much about them of any real value.

What knowledge we gain is then shared with our readers along the following lines:

Here we identify the right countries — the ones that produced the best sounding pressings in shootouts — as well as the “wrong” ones for many of the albums we’ve auditioned.

Some of the titles listed here have better sound on labels that many record collectors would probably not expect to be the best. Other titles have inferior sound based on the labels we’ve identified in these listings.

Keep in mind that all the practical advice you see here is based solely on the experiments we’ve run and the data we’ve collected by doing them.

Helpful title-specific information on mastering houses and engineers to help you find better pressings and avoid the worst ones.

These are albums we’ve found to have polarity issues on one or both sides.

Some audiophiles have been known to complain that our reluctance to give out stamper information is selfish. We think that’s not fair.

We admit that we rarely give out the stamper numbers for the pressings that win shootouts — we paid a high price in time and effort to discover them — but we do give out some of the stampers of records that did not sound expecially good to us.

In addition, below you will find links to advice for record collectors looking for the best vinyl pressings:

The moderately helpful title-specific advice here can help you in your search for better sounding pressings. At the very least it may help you avoid some of the worst ones.

Thinking About Records

  1. Skeptical thinking is key to finding better records
  2. Thinking critically about records is helpful too
  3. Avoid these mistaken ideas in record collecting and audio

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