The Cure – Seventeen Seconds

The best $2 I ever spent! I find al ot of NZ releases to have great sound quality and this is definitely one of them.

This sounds very good : dynamic and clear sound.
I don't think a UK first pressing sounds much better.

Once again, GZ Media strikes! Right from the start, you can tell the experience is going to be disappointing. It begins with terrible crackling, as if it were an old, worn-out record—it lessens slightly but persists throughout the album. Unacceptable! But things get even worse on Side B, where the crackling returns with a vengeance, especially in the right channel.

To make matters worse, my copy came with two dents, as if someone had stabbed the vinyl with a pen. These create two indents that the needle has to cross, causing an annoying thump with each rotation. And, adding insult to injury, these dents appear right at the start of "A Forest". Disastrous! On this side, the noise intensifies, particularly in the right channel, and there's an added saturation in the snare hits, which further distorts the sound quality.

My recommendation: don’t buy this edition! Don’t take the risk. Nowadays, the vinyl world feels like a gamble, where you pay premium prices just to get something decent, but it’s a significant risk. It’s no surprise, then, to see the decline in sales of this format. Rather than a pleasurable experience, it’s become a hunt for a copy that sounds good—with no guarantees. Fiction Records and Warner, with all their resources, have no excuse for allowing such poor quality.

I have variant 1. I was hesitant to open this after seeing great reviews of the MOV and thinking I'd just give this one up, but I think it's a quite good pressing. Needs clean off the bat, printed inner is staticky-tight; take it easy upon first open. Remaster sounds v crisp. Keeping

Absolutely incredible clear sound, no noise or clicks. Very beautiful white color vinyl!

You just can’t beat the early Cure.
Or middle Cure. Saying that, The Cures later era is absolutely superb too, so yeah, The Cure are, were & will forever remain sublime.

Just came here to write how fu#king amazing this pressing sounds.

My RSD picture disc has a 'pimple' on both sides track3. an obvious pressing flaw, Otherwise the disc looks/plays fine.

Great pressing, very atmospheric and punchy with no distortion. The only drawback is the loud surface noise on the first 3~4 minutes of both sides, which no amount of cleaning was able to alleviate.

I picked up a mint (petty much) copy a few days back. It's light weight vinyl, but is dead quiet - and of course, mastering back then was much more conservative i.e. a more dynamic sound - this helps to draw out 'claustrophobic' mood of this masterpiece.

I don't have another version to compare it with (although I had this in my youth), so I just listened side by side with what iTunes has up - as you might expect, the vinyl is much warmer, but the main thing I noticed is that the vinyl produces an emotional response whereas the iTunes version left me unmoved (despite the iTunes version having a clearer vocal and more instrument definition).

I highly recommend this pressing