This is my first ever forum post. I have been reading pages and pages worth of useful information you all have shared over the years quietly for months now. I want to thank you all for sharing so openly and freely and constructively. I am in awe of this forum.
It is with some regret that my first ever post starts on a low note as I have a gripe. "Oh no here we go!"
You see I really am a newb in terms of Vinyl. I have been listening to music for decades but I started buying music in mid eighties (37yo here) and started out with CDs and kept going with those. I had played Lps at home when I was younger but I did not know too much about sound reproduction etc.
Recently I have developed an interest in vinyl due to several reasons -- I do hear a difference on some of the Telarcs, Phillips recordings of Classical music pieces I have listened to as CDs. There is a difference, a pleasant one at that. Also second hand lps for classical music are dirt cheap and come in an insane variety of composers and usually have a lot of the obscure pieces no longer played / recorded by classical music orchestras due to funding etc.
I have a Walker CJ55 turntable that needs some TLC in terms of a better tonearm(it came with an AR tonearm -- not the original tonearm) and probably a better cartridge as I have an Ortofon OM Pro installed for now, and a Denon DP-47F that I love so much I could squeeze it into pieces but it has an average AT cartridge (less than $100 dollars).
Long story short, I have been playing records, cleaning records, crate diving for a few months now. Lately I started buying NEW records from Amazon thinking YEY Vinyl comeback YEY! New records will sound GREAT!
Well I have been much disappointed. I bought Gotye's new album, Fiona Apple's new album and Adele's new album -- thinking great I already love these artists and albums, it will be wonderful to hear what else listening to them on vinyl will reveal.
First off all three albums have amazing artwork and covers. So kudos for that to the factory. But the excitements ends there and turns into disappointment fast as all THREE albums came with lps that have Permanent finger marks and other production artefacts on the lp surface that cleaning with the Spin Clean will not remove. Furthermore the sonically speaking I think the sound of these albums is kind of flat, uninspired and nothing special. It sounds like the CD album was simply transferred to lp with no effort to utilize the capabilities of lp -- read: no remastering.
I could have forgiven the second one, no remastering, if the lps arrived in good condition and played without surface noise.
I also could have forgiven say an album that sounded great for the first 50 plays but then degraded fast because we're in the age of Made in China.
Is there a factory full of kids in China producing these substandard records and selling them at twice the CD prices on Amazon? I am so confused. When did selling such crap become acceptable?
In contrast, I bought a sealed copy of Ray of Light by Madonna (don't you laugh at me LOL), and opened it (I know so evil to open a sealed record), and played it, it sounds AMAZING. Exactly what I was looking for. It sounded great! So I know it is not my system.
Is there any way I can look up the factories that make these albums and avoid the bad ones? Can anyone record a contemporary record company that's still producing records that are worth buying or shall I just give up and go back to my local second hand lp store and be glad that records were pressed right at some point and are available for me to buy second hand?
Ds.
If there is an Urban Outfitters near you, they have a pretty good selection.... 
