elasticStage update
After my previous review of elasticStage, a customer service representative reached out to me and told me that they’d improved their cutting process to reduce the surface noise, and asked if I’d be interested in receiving (at no charge) a recut of the two records. I agreed to this, and the replacement records arrived today.
On both of my albums, I am extremely pleased to report that the audio quality has improved in every possible way! The surface noise is essentially gone, and everything sounds perfectly clean. Some of the subtler sounds that had been lost behind the surface noise before are now super apparent, too.
The difference is much more profound on Transitions than on Refactor, but both albums have definitely improved as a result of their process change.
The actual manufacturing and delivery time was also greatly reduced from the last time, which tells me that they’ve probably cleared a backlog in their manufacturing.
Here are some comparisons between the original digital version, the first cut, and the recut. These were recorded on my TEAC TN-300 turntable using its built-in preamp and a Behringer UCA202 USB audio interface. All versions' levels have been normalized to the same LUFS target, but they are otherwise unprocessed. Also, the pitch is slightly higher on the turntable, which is likely a sign that I need to adjust it (or perhaps elasticStage’s lathes are running slightly slow) UPDATE: I just checked, my turntable is indeed running slightly fast.
Anyway, if you’re interested in buying physical copies of these albums, you can get them from my elasticStage page.