Side four was clean, sides one and two were not

Of the four albums I tested, three came from the same pressing plant. A plant generally considered upper tier. I expected that name to protect me, and it did not.

On one of those albums, side four sounded clean. Sides one and two of the same album were defective. Same factory, same album, different result.

Why? Because each side of each record is pressed from its own stamper. The plant alone is not the variable; the quality is stamper specific within the plant. A worn or damaged stamper produces a bad side in a good factory, and a healthy one produces a clean side under the same roof.

So a famous plant's name in the dead wax is information, not a guarantee. The same is true the other way round: a plant with a poor reputation does not mean a record will be bad, only that quality will vary widely. What matters is the specific pressing, and the codes in the dead wax can sometimes tell you which stamper was used.

Trust the stamper you can identify, not the factory you have heard of.