Classics Clarity Vinyl

I purchased a couple of dozen Classic 180gm and they were all perfect. When they went to the 200gm I got about 1/2 that were from good to perfect,(a few pops to perfectly quiet) a few that were bad but not worth the trouble of sending back and about a third that were absolute garbage. My purchases were from Music Direct, Elusive Disk and Accoustic Sounds. Each of these companies completely backed the product and I can highly recommend them. I did get two sets of clarity vinyl and they are both fine but I again have written off classic records, primarily due to their response to this problem. They seem to completely ignore it and continue down the same path.

Just to add more datapoints.....

I own the following three Classics Clarity releases:

Cannonball Adderley, Somethin' Else
John Coltrane: Blue Train
Louis Armstrong & Duke Ellington: ? (I forget which one)

Each of these sounds superb.

While it does sound a bit hit or miss, I guess I have been very unlucky.

I don't think it's tracking force (running a Dynavector XV-1s at 2.01) and other vinyl titles are fine.

I do seem to get more problems with 45 rpm though. Doug, what is the slow play test?

Ian

I have the "Somethin Else" Mono 45rpm set on Clarity. It's the only Classic record I have that sounds perfect. No noise, no pops. Beautiful. But the other six I've had(black vinyl 200g) range from "listenable but not really acceptable" to "complete rice crispy garbage".

The most frustrating thing is when someone who's never experienced it suggests you're doing something wrong like "your antiskate is off" "your vtf is too light". You mean my vtf is a problem for records made by one company but not for the hundreds of other records I have?

I'm really happy "Somethin Else" turned out right though. It sounds amazing.

Madfloyd I'm glad you mentioned the cartridge! 2 things on the XV, I had read that it can supress surface noise (so I bought one and found it to be true in my system) and that in my system the ohm loading does make some difference to the noise supression. I run mine at 100ohm and I do have 9 4LP 45rpm box sets and the worst of them probably only has noise/clicks/pops on 2-5% of the whole record, usualy on the 1st or last track. Put differently, they may not be the quietest LPs I have (that honour belongs to the "cheap" Classical Decca/DeuGram etc from 2nd hand shops) but I have never had a reason to want to return one. My current most annoying LP is the Speakers Corner Miles Davis 'Round about Midnight, 1st/title track "breaks up" when the muted trumpet hits the high notes... Anyway I suppose that's why most of us flogged to CDs in the 80s, ticks & pops! So some of them ticks waited for us to come back :-) I guess with Classic Records "gone" one might not have too many options. You might be lucky to have someone pay you double for your "limited editions" and they sound perfect in their system!