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In Reply to: RE: Vinyl Me, Now customer service disaster posted by michael22 on December 23, 2022 at 12:14:32
Do you mean Vinyl Me Please in Denver? You received it as a gift and you're that annoyed? "Customer service disaster" sounds somewhat hyperbolic. A customer service disaster to me would involve bringing my car in for an oil change and it falls off the lift totaling the car and killing the mechanic.You might try the phone number below.
Edits: 12/23/22Follow Ups:
I've been a record collector for over 65 years, and remember when I could bring a defective pressing back to the record store for a replacement or refund. I obviously don't expect that kind of service today, but for $45+ I do expect some kind of reasonable customer service from the manufacturer.And BTW when I do a Google search for the company, I get an address in Boulder, not Denver. Their address and phone number should be stated on their website. It's actually easier to contact Tim Cook at Apple than any responsible person at VMP.
Edits: 12/24/22
Unfortunately, record warps seem to be par for the course - even if the record was pressed flat, the warps can occur during distribution and delivery.
I recently bought the MoFi One-step edition of Michael Jackson's Thriller (to hear for myself what all the fuss was about!) and this USD100 record was dished very significantly. The packaging was totally undamaged and visually "flat" so one couldn't accuse the supplier of knowingly providing a flawed product. I would speculate that it was pressed in a rush and warped during cooling. My point being, even expensive One-steps are not immune to this kind of issue. I've received many BN Tone Poets which are slightly dished. This is a known risk with heavyweight pressing which need a longer cycle time to allow for proper fill and cooling.
Given that I live on the other side of the world and postage and tax already often makes up almost an additional 50% to the cost of a record, I invested in a vinyl flattening tool - the VinylFlat. Even if you get a replacement disc, there is no guarantee it will be any better so I prefer to fix what I received and save the time and effort for enjoying the music.
I highly recommend it. It is relatively inexpensive as far as gadgets go in this hobby and it fixes warped and dished records in a couple of 4 hour sessions in the heating pouch they also sell.
I know it is annoying to have warped discs, but with mail order, they are almost a fact of life and very few discs are "perfectly" flat from new. Once flattened, the discs do not have any audible flaws so it would be fair to say that most warps are cosmetic issues rather than a product flaw like off-centred discs which IMO IS a production fault since audible wow is the consequence and re-centering is much more challenging than flattening.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
"This is a known risk with heavyweight pressing which need a longer cycle time to allow for proper fill and cooling."
Acoustic Sounds (QRP) is moving from 200 gram to 180 gram pressings. Some of the flattest (and quietest) disks I've encountered are the 140 gram Japanese pressings on virgin vinyl.
I once tried flattening a badly warped record by placing it on a flat surface and under a heavy piece of plate glass, leaving it in the sun for a couple of hours.
It worked, the disc was flattened, but this minutely changes the dimensions, resulting in audible playback wow. In any case, the disc did play.
That is a completely uncontrolled method of flattening a disc and shouldn't be used if you want to avoid damage to your discs. What you describe implies that the applied load and resultant temperature that the PVC was exposed to were excessive because the VinylFlat does not change the groove concentricity or alter the dimensions. The volume of material is fixed after pressing so the only way to increase the outer radius of the disc or to introduce a dimensional change is to heat the material well above the heat deflection temperature towards the glass transition temperature.
The VinylFlat and Orb should be set to only take the disc up to the heat deflection temperature which is around 54°C. If the temperature gets above 60 to 65°C then the PVC degrades and you can damage the record - if the PVC has been excessively heated it becomes shiny in appearance with pitting on the surface.
Warps are introduced AFTER pressing since the stampers are ostensibly "flat" (ignoring the marketing around UHQRs etc). The flatteners mentioned will enable the material to relax back to its original shape but the dimensions do not change when the process is conducted within the optimum temperature range and with a suitable load just sufficient to remove the warp once the heat deflection temperature is reached.
In any case, wow is almost always a given with vinyl playback too - if not from the turntable motor/belt then due to spindle holes that are off centre even by a small amount and often by a greater amount than the tolerance specified in the standards.
In any case, returning the record with the expectation of a perfect replacement is a lottery and unless you are prepared to continuously return product, a proper flattener is the best solution.
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
I think you may have slightly missed my point - even IF the record is pressed flat, warps can occur due to packaging (tight shrink wrapping) and during distribution and storage. I'm in the Southern hemisphere so whether I import in Summer or Winter I still have a problem either at source or within my country due to the temperature conditions in transit. I should imagine you would have the same issues in your Summer within the US.
With the current high demand for vinyl, 180g pressings are less likely to be flat now than at any previous point in time - almost without exception, I'm having to flatten new reissues (180g or less), Tone Poets, One Steps, UHQRs...the lot. The tight shrink wrap and single LP gatefolds seem to not help things, but the warped One Step I got tells me cycle times are being pushed down to the absolute limit to meet production targets.
I wasn't aware that Japan was still producing and exporting new reissues so I'm not sure how Japanese quality would help your VMP complaint. All the reissues I'm seeing on the market are pressed either in Europe or North America. Sony were planning on setting up pressing plants in Japan, but my understanding was that this was to satisfy the local market rather than for export.
Do yourself a favour and ask Santa for a VinylFlat this Christmas!
Have a Merry Christmas and enjoy your music :)
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
The packaging and shipping seemed fine. VMP does not use shrink wrap, rather a thin outer sleeve. The mailer was very generous - 14" or so - and the album was not pinched in any way. So, I'd attribute the warp to either storage or pressing.
Pressing would be my guess. It's a brand new pressing plant after all.
You're better off with the Orb if you can afford it. Flattening is simple and almost full proof. Press two buttons, come back four hour later and done! Never had a mishap. If you have a large collection, this is almost a must.
We're probably just wasting our breath on talking about flattening tools to the OP. None of his responses acknowledge flattening as an option.
We can agree to disagree, but I'm still struggling to see what the value proposition of the Orb is due to the high relative cost!
You could have at least 4xVinylFlat running in parallel off one timer for no more money than ONE Orb thus allowing a double LP or a box set to be done in one go.
I would say that this is a significant advantage of the VinylFlat to a collector.
Also, I don't know if you saw the thread Akolegov started some months back, but he used the Orb which damaged a client's record. Perhaps it was misuse or a product fault. Any idea what might have gone wrong in his case?
Regards Anthony
"Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty.." Keats
Generally, most Japanese pressings are flat and centered, no matter the thickness. They just do a better job and are more meticulous. Unfortunately, there aren't too many Japanese pressing plants anymore.
Yes, I agree. They should have a phone number where a human can be reached. It can be very frustrating these days. When things like this happen, it's very easy to get caught up in the moment. It's happened to us all. I think my point was it's not worth getting crazy about; when looked at with some perspective, it's a rather minor annoyance. And it sounds like you resolved it.
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