The Artist (Formerly Known As Prince) – The Gold Experience

It sounds terrible for the first time in my life I prefer CD version over vinyl. It sounds flat, dimmed and lifeless. I always buy old pressings because I heard many times they were made much better back then and oh boy it's that true. Inner sleeves are sticky I couldn't pull out the records out of them. Vinyls were dirty covered in some white stains, spots and dust. Edges of the vinyls are sharp. Big disappointment.

I noticed there's no lyrics for P Control on the first inner sleeve?

Sound is great, like this album, own 12 and this is my favorite…

Let's be honest, what an ugly cover. Looks like a simple zoom of CD cover. Anyway, pressing is good.

Too compressed, in typical GZ fashion.
Last album I buy from them.

Sansui A-80
Audio Technica AT-LPW40WN
Focal Chorus 714

Great pressing in my opinion, nearly 0 pops, crackles or anything

There are some slightly curious packaging choices with this one - why have super staticky gloss-finish inner sleeves when (unless someone who owns the original pressing can correct me on this) the original didn't, and no one had complained about that? I'd have preferred a matt finish on the inners, and them spending the money saved on including some anti-static sleeves, or using thicker card for the outer sleeve. On the more positive side, the sound is fine to my ears. I'm glad that this is out there and it's obviously especially good news for those who didn't pick up the previous versions. But it's a bare-bones reissue that does feel like a missed opportunity to elevate the packaging above that of the original retail pressing (if you ask me, something like the hardback-book effect of the recent Quincy Jones' The Dude reissue packaging would have been pretty good for an album as special as TGE).

I don't have an original pressing to compare but this sounds OK to my ears. Nice controlled bass (not to blown), reasonable separation but it does feel as if there could be more and its a bit muddy.....a bit compressed then but not totally horrible.
No cutting initials in the runouts and the pressing is from GZ so I expected the worst but apart from sleeve dust all over the records (no polylined inners) the records are flat and quiet (literally only 1 tick on side 3) with just minor groove noise - I ultrasonically cleaned them prior to playing. The reproduced sleeve is OK but the text on the cover looks a bit blurred to me and not sharp at all although the inners with the lyrics etc are fine. Overall then better than spending £300 on the original but I suspect this could sound a whole lot better if they tried a bit harder. Hopefully they'll be a Super Deluxe at some point with a better cut from Grundman or alike.

The Gold Experience is my 2nd fave Prince album. This album sounds amazing on vinyl!! Always loved the artwork to this album too. Absolute masterpiece.