Re: Online vinyl purchasing
Posted: Tue Sep 01, 2020 11:08 am
Here is what Acoustic Sounds says...Thinkfloyd wrote: ↑Thu Sep 03, 2020 11:42 am I was thinking about this one, but I'm expecting that they'll all be rubbish DOL pressings, digital cut to vinyl.
Europe's copyright laws are different than those in the U.S. Under EU law (as amended in 2011), any sound recording that was released before the end of 1962 is in the public domain. Which means that it is perfectly legal for anybody in Europe to copy, reproduce, market, and sell these recordings. In addition, nearly all these public domain labels press their albums at gzvinyl in the Czech republic on 180-gram vinyl. The jackets on the whole are well done. The overall production quality is very good.
That said, you can certainly argue that the sound quality is not always the best. Since the labels are not required to pay a licensing fee or get permission from the rights holder, they do not have access to the original master tapes. Public domain repressings are almost certainly sourced from digital files. However, most LPs are cut from digital sources, and they can sound very good. I have about 30 different public domain repressings of classic jazz albums, and the quality ranges from excellent to so-so. None of them is terrible. The jackets are well done, and all of the vinyl is flat and quiet.
I've seen a lot of negative comments about public domain vinyl releases which I don't think are accurate. I absolutely agree that if you want the highest quality sound possible and have a healthy budget, you will be happier with an original pressing (or repressing), a Japanese reissue, or a remastered edition from a US audiophile label. However, for most classic jazz titles, these will set you back anywhere from $25 to $1,000. If your budget is limited, or you just want to have a vinyl copy of some rare jazz album that is very difficult to find at any price, then public domain copies can be a good choice. I wrote a blog post [http://vinyldiscovery.blogspot.com/2019 ... panam.html] where I compared the sound quality of nine of the public domain labels if you are interested to read more.