Carpenters - Abysmal vinyl pressings

strreolovedj

New Member
Is there any news on Carpenters being reissued / remastered on vinyl. Miles Showell at Abbey Road needs to get his hand on the original masters so we can finally have decent remasters. 50 years later and we still have the junk churned out by Universal over five years ago. A serious embarrassment to the Carpenters’ legacy.
 
The major issue with Universal’s 2017 pressings wasn’t the mastering (they were using the 1998 Remasters—-of course Passage was the poorest remaster back then), but how Universal went with the cheapest pressing plant that lacked quality control. Even a year later with the RPO album, Universal used the cheapest plant as well, resulting in albums that sounded like records found at garage sales or pawn shops. Or in some cases, records that should’ve been thrown out.

Surprisingly, Richard Carpenter’s Piano Songbook was apparently pressed at a plant where Universal spent more money and had quality control in it! Was it because the album was on Decca vs A&M that Universal went with the higher quality?
 
Is there any news on Carpenters being reissued / remastered on vinyl. Miles Showell at Abbey Road needs to get his hand on the original masters so we can finally have decent remasters. 50 years later and we still have the junk churned out by Universal over five years ago. A serious embarrassment to the Carpenters’ legacy.

Universal has long been known to "go cheap" when it comes to vinyl pressing. Shame too. It likely turns off potential new vinyl converts. My RPO album sounds positively atrocious. I scanned the contents for the site (even the cover came bent but it wasn't anything I couldn't fix), listened through once, and put it on the shelf never to be accessed again. I didn't bother getting the reissues; I have very nice originals that I'm happy with and I knew what I'd find if I went down that road.

I have nothing concrete but I suppose but I doubt if there'll be any more remastering. It was done once and I can't imagine any of them sold in quantities that would encourage further work in that regard.

Ed
 
Universal has long been known to "go cheap" when it comes to vinyl pressing. Shame too. It likely turns off potential new vinyl converts. My RPO album sounds positively atrocious. I scanned the contents for the site (even the cover came bent but it wasn't anything I couldn't fix), listened through once, and put it on the shelf never to be accessed again. I didn't bother getting the reissues; I have very nice originals that I'm happy with and I knew what I'd find if I went down that road.

I have nothing concrete but I suppose but I doubt if there'll be any more remastering. It was done once and I can't imagine any of them sold in quantities that would encourage further work in that regard.

Ed
Not to mention, but Universal also seems to, nowadays, prefer using presses that were designed for just 120g vinyls records in order to press 180g records. And I think some people have wondered if Universal really uses virgin vinyl or recycled vinyl for their new LP’s.

I also remember that back in 2016-17 it was reported that Richard rejected a number of test pressings of the albums, because he felt they didn’t match the sound quality of the 70’s masters (of course using the 98 Remasters, the 2017 vinyls were being mastered from digital sources versus the 70’s/80’s LP’s being mastered from analog sources) and he was holding up the release date because he rejected so many pressings (and he was playing them on the same record player he used in the 70’s & 80’s to sign off on the original pressings). But then the let down was with the pressing plant.
 
When I first purchased the white RPO LP, I received an email from Universal about some of them having been defective. A refund or replacement was offered. Did anyone else receive the same email at the time? I am also curious about the quality of the white vinyl edition pressed in Europe (France). Are they better than the ones that were pressed in the US?
 
When I first purchased the white RPO LP, I received an email from Universal about some of them having been defective. A refund or replacement was offered. Did anyone else receive the same email at the time? I am also curious about the quality of the white vinyl edition pressed in Europe (France). Are they better than the ones that were pressed in the US?
Oh yes lol
I actually have 4 RPO LP’s...I kept trying and trying with Universal to get a decent one and it was impossible. We went back and forth with emails for a while...in the end they refunded my money for all of it. Just terrible terrible vinyl. I posted about this earlier somewhere but I spent a great deal of time trying to rip all 4 LP’s, trying to get the best songs from each defected LP and join them together which was quite difficult with all the interludes. None of the LP’s were any good as a whole so I had to pick the best songs from each and rip them onto an album so I could listen on the go.

The Vinyl Collection before the RPO was another fiasco, terrible vinyl from Ume, I returned that one and ended up just getting Lovelines LP. Still none of it compared to the original A&M vinyl releases from the 70’s and 80’s.
 
Oh yes lol
I actually have 4 RPO LP’s...I kept trying and trying with Universal to get a decent one and it was impossible. We went back and forth with emails for a while...in the end they refunded my money for all of it. Just terrible terrible vinyl. I posted about this earlier somewhere but I spent a great deal of time trying to rip all 4 LP’s, trying to get the best songs from each defected LP and join them together which was quite difficult with all the interludes. None of the LP’s were any good as a whole so I had to pick the best songs from each and rip them onto an album so I could listen on the go.

The Vinyl Collection before the RPO was another fiasco, terrible vinyl from Ume, I returned that one and ended up just getting Lovelines LP. Still none of it compared to the original A&M vinyl releases from the 70’s and 80’s.
I've seen videos on YouTube about the Vinyl Collection and the quality I saw was horrific. I did buy Lovelines and Ticket To Ride separately (last year and this year), assuming Universal would have improved the pressings. Lovelines was decent, but there were pops. Ticket To Ride was pressed in Europe, and was of better quality (even just visually) and sound. So I am wondering about the quality of the RPO LPs that were pressed in Europe.
 
When I first purchased the white RPO LP, I received an email from Universal about some of them having been defective. A refund or replacement was offered. Did anyone else receive the same email at the time? I am also curious about the quality of the white vinyl edition pressed in Europe (France). Are they better than the ones that were pressed in the US?
My RPO, which was just the black vinyl, sounded like a pawn shop record. There were no skips, but it was incredibly noise and full of pops and crackles.
 
I bought one of each color, and they are both as bad, if not worse than the numerous box sets I’ve gone through. I was happy to finally order a single copy of Lovelines when Target had their buy 2, get 1 free promotion, and it only has about 3 or 4 pops I replaced the copy in the box set with it. My original vinyl is still sealed, since I had the cd.
 
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