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20 May 2010
LP Appreciation Day Series #2
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Modular Audio held its second LPAD on 15 May (Saturday), a 1-day special event (with very minimal commercial break) to share the joy of vinyl playing with fellow vinyl old-hand, vinyl rookie and wanna-be
Unlike the first LPAD where we played mostly audiophile and highly pricey LP, this time, the LP playlist was more interesting. We compared digital recording of the same title (CD vs. digital LP); some good sounding local pressings that you should not dismiss; two excellent sounding thin LP proving that LP weight is not part of the good sound equation plus plenty of good classical music.
Thank you all for coming and we hope you enjoyed our program!
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The equipment took a back seat at LPAD as the star of the show were the LP software. Nevertheless, Ocellia’s speakers, cables and electronics (from France) provided the good sound.
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Two Origin Live turntables were used on the show with the Aurora Mk2 with Silver tonarm (left) actually belonging to a customer who was due to take it home after the first session.
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We were all ears...
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LPAD #2 Playlist
- Commitments OST (Germany, MCA), "Mustang Sally"
- The Royal Grand Orchestra - Golden Sax (Local pressing, Regal), "Harlem Nocturne"
- Perez Prado & His Orchestra (Local pressing, JVC), "Mambo No. 5"
- Special EFX - Confidential (US, GRP), “Secret Storm (Part I)”
- RLJ - Flying Cowboys (US, Geffen), "The Horses"
- Paul McCartney - The Official Bootleg (Spain, MPL), "Ain't No Sunshine"
- Rolling Stones - Stripped (UK, Virgin), "The Spider and the Fly"
- Georges Bizet: Carmen Marilyn Horne/James McCracken/Leonard Bernstein (3LP Box Set, Germany, DGG)
- Jose Carreras - Misa Criolla (Dutch, Philips), "Navidad en Verano"
- Franz Liszt - Hungarian Fantasia (Germany, DGG) Shura Cherkassky Piano/ Hungarian Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra
- Janos Starker - Bach Suites for unaccompanied cello compete (Germany, Speakers Corner), "Praeludium"
- Pinchas Zukerman/Midori - Bach - Vivaldi Double Concertos (Dutch, Philips)
- Herold-Lanchbery - La Fille Mal Gardee (UK, Decca)
- Rimsky Korsakov - Scheherazade (Dutch, Philips) Herman Krebbers, solo violin
- David Oistrakh - Beethoven Violin Concerto in D major (UK, EMI)
- Porcupine Tree - Coma Divine (Czech, Headspin), “Radioactive Toy”
- The Ray Brown Trio - Soular Energy (US, Concord Jazz), "Exactly like you"
- Aaron Neville - Warm Your Heart (UK, A&M) 'Everybody plays the fool'
- Aaron Neville - 45rpm Promo single (US, A&M) "Everybody plays the fool"
- Gary Moore - The Loner (Test Record)
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Note: All these LPs are from our personal collection. They’re Not-for-Sale.
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27 Apr 2010
LP Quality Control
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Many of you know that we only sell and encourage our customers to play only clean copies of vinyl. Clean vinyl not only sound better and hence more enjoyable, it also prolongs your cartridge’s life.
To continuously achieve our high LP standard, we first have to take good care in our sourcing (garbage in garbage out). We usually do not buy in bulk due to the usual mixing of the good stuff and inferior ones. Then, we would try as far as possible to handpick each title although this is time consuming and at times not possible due to different geographical location of the seller.
Despite of our very effort, sometimes mistakes are still made. For instance we got bumped by a Whitesnake 1987 lp in shrink wrap and everything looking unplayed but the plastic inside belonged to some black artist. We blamed it on our shopping fatigue.
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Above picture is just a small sample of the rejected goods that did not pass our quality checks and therefore did not make it to our LP shelves. Some were due to noisy vinyl (playing surface that looked deceivingly perfect); some were due to insufficient disclosure of LP condition by seller and many due to a track that has a permanent blockade to the next music note. As you can see, some of these damaged goods are premium stuff - Carmina Burana, Teresa Teng, 1st pressing of Counts and Sparks and the original Blue Note Horace Silver Quintet just to name a few....
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Here’s another defect, a deadly one although less common.
This is no hairline scratch (picture above) but a deep fracture that could spilt the LP into two. It was a defect not detected until we thoroughly cleaned this otherwise near mint looking LP. Many times, such problem usually goes unnoticed during visual inspection due to a layer of dust masking the LP surface. So buyers of unclean LPs beware!
We made these mistakes so you wouldn’t make yours. As far as we could, each title that goes to our LP shelves are visually checked and cleaned. If they looked suspicious, we would play grade and only those really rare stuff that sometimes near-mint condition is a near-impossibility (to find) that exceptions are made. Seasoned Blue Note hunters would tell you its not easy to get NM 1st pressing of Blue Note records.
With such QC, your lp shopping with us is not only safe - its guaranteed. |
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So what concoction do we use (without stating the obvious) to clean our LP?
Another “buyer beware” advice I would give for patrons of lp cleaning service is to ask your provider the blew of soap (detergent?) used. Using the wrong soap could cause lasting damage to your precious lp. Also some lp solution would leave an undesirable sonic signature on your lp after clean. We have had experienced of a blue coloured lp solution that would make the lp sound “harder” after cleaning.
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With the right cleaning solution, the last in the arsenal of our lp QC is a powerful wet vacuum based cleaning machine (Clearaudio Matrix). Without the use of a strong vacuum to suck up all the rubbish and dislodged dirt, your lp cleaning job is only half done. So why leave it at that?
We usually leave the cleaned lp to completely dry for a minute or so before inserting it into a new inner. Of course with new outer sleeve as well.
Keeping our lp stock fresh and making them look and sound like new is a serious job. We pride in the quality we keep and I am sure you do too. We have no plans to provide lp cleaning service at Modular Audio (due to operational issues) at this moment but why bother when you can get all your cleaned vinyl from us.
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