Issue No. 847 — Week of October 14, 2025
Pressing of the Week: Coltrane, A Love Supreme — Acoustech 45rpm SuperVinyl Box.
A half-speed master cut from the original 1965 analog tape by our Sterling Sound–trained consultants, pressed on four 45rpm 200g SuperVinyl slabs and housed in a tip-on Stoughton gatefold. The closest we have heard a reissue come to the Rudy Van Gelder original — and the most confident object in the catalog this week.
Browsing Taxonomy
A connoisseur's toolkit, not a faceted search.
Eight-four thousand SKUs across three hundred and twelve sub-genres — every record in the catalog is sliced along six working dimensions. Move slowly. The right pressing is rarely the obvious one.
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01
Genre
Spirituals & gospel, post-bop, shoegaze, Italian library, Detroit techno, ambient, kosmische, roots reggae, ECM jazz, no wave, krautrock, private-press soul — 312 sub-genres in all, each curated by a former buyer.
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Decade
1950s pressings, mono-era originals, the stereo transition years, the gatefold boom of 1971–1979, the half-speed awakening of 1980–1995, and the modern audiophile reissues from 1996 forward.
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Format
12-inch LP, 7-inch and 10-inch single, 45rpm EP, double-LP gatefold, triple-LP box, 4-LP 45rpm box, 8-disc deluxe set, picture disc (graded separately), and the increasingly rare 78.
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Grade
Four tiers, applied by hand. Mint, Near Mint, VG+, and VG — every used listing carries an audio sample, a sleeve scan, and a one-paragraph note from the grader. See the full legend below.
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Label
Blue Note, Impulse!, Atlantic, Motown, Stax, ECM, 4AD, Rough Trade, SST, Numero Group, and the fourteen audiophile reissue houses we hold exclusive U.S. license with.
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Weight & Speed
Standard 140g, audiophile 180g, heavyweight 200g, 45rpm single-disc, 45rpm double-disc, half-speed mastered, OneStep, Clarity Vinyl, SuperVinyl, and direct-metal-mastered stamper cuts.
New & Notable Pressings
Twelve records added this week, all hand-graded, all mailed in 4mm corrugated.
84,000+ SKUs · 312 sub-genres · 14 exclusive reissue labels
Gold-Standard Grading System
Four tiers. Applied by hand. Adopted by thirty-eight indie shops.
Every used pressing is inspected by one of six full-time grading specialists, auditioned against the original analog tape where available, and listed with a sleeve scan, an audio sample, and a one-paragraph note. The system below is the benchmark we have shared with thirty-eight independent record stores across North America.
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Mint
Sealed or played once. No audible surface noise.
Unblemished sleeve, no spindle trail, original inner sleeve and inserts present. Used only when a copy is genuinely indistinguishable from new — we will downgrade to Near Mint at the first sign of handling.
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Near Mint
Lightly played. Surface noise below the music floor.
The most common grade in our used inventory. Sleeve may show a faint corner touch or a whisper of ring wear; the vinyl has been auditioned end-to-end and shows no audible ticks through the program material.
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VG+
Played with care. Light noise between tracks only.
Visible sleeve wear, possible small writing on the label, occasional soft tick in quiet passages — never in vocal or solo lines. A serious collector's grade, fully enjoyable on a well-set-up table.
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VG
Played often. Surface noise present but musical.
Crisp playback through the louder passages; light noise floor throughout. Sleeve may be split at a seam, ring-worn, or marked. We list VG copies with the caveat that they are for listeners, not investors.
Exclusive Reissue Partners
Fourteen audiophile houses anchor our premium tier.
We hold direct U.S. license with the labels below — every OneStep, half-speed, and Clarity Vinyl title we carry was sourced through them, not a broker.
- Music Matters Jazz 33rpm · 180g · Hand-numbered gatefolds
- Analogue Productions 45rpm · 200g · Acoustech & SuperVinyl
- ORG Music Clarity Vinyl · 180g · AAA from analog tape
- Mobile Fidelity OneStep · 45rpm · 200g · GAIN 2
Also carrying Acoustic Sounds, Speakers Corner, Doxy, Impex, Intervention, Sundazed, Wax Love, and Light in the Attic.
Liner Note — Issue No. 847
What separates a heavyweight pressing from any other reissue.
A reissue is a promise. The label licenses the master, commissions a lacquer cut, presses a run, ships it in a sleeve, and asks you to believe that what you hear is what was recorded. Most of the time, that promise is broken twice: once at the cutting lathe, and once at the plating bath. A heavyweight pressing is one where neither break happened — where the chain from analog tape to your tonearm was held by people who knew what they were letting go of when they said yes.
We have spent sixteen years learning to hear the difference, and most of what we learned came from records that failed it. A 180g reissue cut from a digital intermediate, lacquered at the wrong pitch, plated in a hurry, and pressed on a stamper that had been run one too many times. The press sheet says it is audiophile. The needle says it is Tuesday. You can plate a record at any weight you like; weight is not the test. The test is whether the lacquer cut honored the tape, and whether every step downstream kept that promise intact.
That is why every catalog entry here carries weight, speed, mastering house, and the name of the consultant who auditioned it. It is why our grading specialists — six of them, full-time, trained at Abbey Road and Sterling Sound — listen to every used copy before it lists. It is why we ship in 4mm corrugated mailers with anti-static inner sleeves, a system we engineered with IPG and have tested across two point one million shipments to a crack rate of seven hundredths of one percent. The records survived the trip. We have the data to prove it, and we will show you the receipts.
If you are reading this on a Tuesday night with a coffee, weighing whether to order the OneStep or the standard 45rpm, the answer is the one our consultants signed off on. The catalog is curated. The grade is honest. The sleeve will arrive intact. That is the only difference we have ever tried to sell.