The Catalogue Collection (2025)

[fivesixzero]

Originally Posted by darmok

Vinyl is starting to come in from the various places I ordered from. I put Barking on first and right away there's a nasty pop on Bird 1. I'll break out the ultrasonic cleaner later, but I always hate it when new, seemingly clean vinyl does that.

I've got a pretty noticible pop on Bird1 on my Barking album too, as well as a few other places toward the outside of the disc. Haven't given it the ultrasonic treatment - just got my ultrasonic cleaner set up this week, testing solutions/methods on some bargain bin vinyl before cleaning the UW ones.

Looking closely at the grooves it does look like pretty deep dust bits, possibly frayed/disintegrated cardstock. The cardstock inner sleeves look great but almost all of my 2025 remasters (ordered all 7) have some visible damage from them. First thing I did was take them out carefully, trying to avoid sliding against the flats of the inner sleeves, then put them in some fresh archival inner sleeves. But what's done is done. Most of the albums sound decent enough, with a few pops here and there on Barking and Oblivion, but no show-stopping issues.

I guess that's what I get for ordering direct to the US in the first round of pre-orders. Guessing they got jostled quite a bit during their journey. They were packed well, at or above standard, but still got some substantial dents in the edges. Thankfully I don't really care about 'mint' condition - as long as they sound good. Which they do! Mostly.

I should get time to do the ultrasonic thing this week, will report back if it helps or not.