The Sugarcubes – Life's Too Good

This numbered and limited edition Lp is the best sounding copy of this album I’ve ever heard. I’ve had many versions of this album through the years and none sound as good as this re-issue. It’s A DMM , Direct Metal Mastering Copy, and it’s limited to 1000 hand numbered copies. It’s 200g virgin vinyl and completely silent without pops and clicks, if you buy a brand new copy. I purchased the copy I own directly from One Little Indian. It’s just the best way vinyl is made in my opinion. I have a few DMM vinyl releases and they all sound better than even my Japanese Lps which are mostly pressed with virgin vinyl generally. Even used Japanese vinyl sounds like it did from day one as the Japanese culture isn’t like the American culture. They take pride in their processions and take very good care of the things they own as they don’t have the luxury to be wasteful like “We” Americans do. I’ve purchased many from Japanese sellers and from a local Gentleman who was very OCD about his vinyl collection. He has been thinning out his collection and he will call me and let me know when he’s going to sell some of his vinyl.

What a lot of people do not realize is the Japanese pressing plants where using new vinyl with each pressing, that’s one reason why they are desirable, plus they tend to be heavier in weight. Near the end of the heyday of vinyl in the mid to late 80’s many U.S. pressing where pressed from recycled vinyl, scraps and old lps. These where melted down and then the raw vinyl was filtered, but still some debris made its way into the finyl album pressings. That’s why back then, you could buy a Brand New copy of your favorite album and it would have pops and clicks already in it when played as it had debris imbedded in the pressing from day one. Japanese pressings where not made from recycled vinyl and they were mostly pressed from new material. Not scraps and old albums. Europe was not as bad ing scraps either and I often will seek out a copy of a disred album from the E.U. I generally look for pressings from Pallas or I buy the U.S. copy on RTI or Mobile Fidelity. I’m also satisfied with most pressings from Speakers Corner, Musin On Vinyl, and Analouge Productions. The Doors 2012 Box Set repressing is incredible sounding and they are well done. From the 200g 45rpm mastering to the thick and well replicated covers, this is an incredible set to own.

I avoid the record label “Matador Records” like the plague. I had a terrible experience with a issue of Interpol - El Pintor (Red Vinyl) that ripped out a stylus on my $1,200 Clearaudio Maestro V2 cartridge. Look at to see why.

https://discogs.librosgratis.biz/label/194-Matador

The advantages of DMM (hard surface material) over acetate lacquer cutting (soft surface material) are both sonic and practical: because of the rigidity of the master disc medium, no groove wall bounce-back effects take place after the cutting has been completed. This preserves the original modulation details in the groove walls much better, especially those involved with sudden fast attacks (transients). The improved transient response, as well as the more linear phase response of DMM improve the overall stability and depth-of-field in the stereo image. (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

These are one step production lps, similar to those released by MFSL like Donald Fagen - The Nightfly” that is a quite impressive sounding album and worth the $200 it cost pre-order.

Also there are several things that make albums sound bad, like force, which I test every few weeks as it gets off and a good Azimuth gauge is also a necessary piece of equipment for the serious collector with a good “test lp” as well. If your stylus isn’t perfectly straight, it will not glide in the center of the groove, which will both destroying your lps and the stylus over time.

There’s a lot more to being a serious vinyl collector than just buying a turntable and a few albums.