$100,000 of gear, a terrible new record

I have spent over $100,000 on my audiophile equipment, and my turntable costs more than most people's cars. Still, enough of my brand new, factory-sealed premium records sound terrible that I had to investigate why.

Here is the chain they play through: the McIntosh MT5 into the C12000's dedicated phono stage, the MC611 monoblocks, the Wilson Yvettes. Every record cleaned in a Degritter Mk II with lab-grade distilled water, solution and filters changed every 20 to 30 cycles, a carbon-fibre brush before every play, zero fingerprints.

If the pressing quality is there, this system will reveal it. If defects are there, it will expose them without any mercy. That is what I paid for, and it is exactly why the bad records hurt.

When a chain like that cannot rescue a record, the chain is not the problem. I could chase another cartridge, another cable, another cleaning fluid. None of it reaches a fault pressed into the groove. The money is better spent on research before the next record than on gear after it.

The most expensive thing in my system cannot fix the cheapest shortcut in the factory. That is the whole story of new vinyl.