Parannoul* – After The Magic

Is it just me or is this pressing a bit quiet? Like, the sound is great, but I find I have to turn up my speakers louder than other records to get it to the volume I like.

unexpectedly huge sound. And beautiful color to boot. 5 stars.

My copy sounds great! No background noise, no clicks or pops, very good dynamics and decent stereo separation.

According to previous comment i've probably been lucky: My labels perfectly centered.
Disc 1 is just a tad warped though (anyway no problems with playback).

Seems like this might be *the* variant to get — since Polaris Blue uhhh didn't really turn out and Magenta Magic if boring AF and (my copy at least) is super off-center. This one looks incredible.

Sounds and looks great aside from the A/B labels being ridiculously off-center. I've never seen anything this bad. The hole in the record where the label *should* have been centered is a full 1/2" away from where the "hole" in the label actually is. The label sticker almost covers some of record grooves!

Love the album but the center labels on record A/B are wildly off-center. My needle doesn’t like that.

Great Pressing, dynamic and clean sound throughout, will definitely be a favorite album candidate for 2023.

Absolutely stunning pressing and presentation. Did a dry clean before spinning and there is no noise at all. Very dynamic, one of the best sounding records I own!

Anyone else have horrible crackling on the very first track? I’ve reached out to Topshelf for a replacement

So I'm not a spokesperson for Topshelf nor affiliated with them at all, but wanted to relay some info regarding the way this variant turned out. This is straight from the horse's mouth, i.e., the one guy who is currently running Topshelf Records. He confirms that help is on the way (new hires) but for the time being, this dude is placing all orders for vinyl, handling all logistics, and shipping them from his apartment. Just for perspective.

also! anyone getting the "Polaris Blue" variant and finding it doesn't look as intended. we're looking into how this happened as this isn't what we ordered. i was as suprised as any of you. here's some copy pasta i've sent a few people who have emailed to inquire about it:

I didn't change anything about our order. This is not how I ordered it. I didn't order a "color in color" as you have received. I ordered a "galaxy" and never changed that. My exact words when ordering from the manufacturer: "DDGalaxy #13 Transparent + C1 Solid White 'POLARIS BLUE'". I used this tool the manufacturer provides to generate a mockup: https://colorconfig.atozmedia.com/ and that's what we have based everything off of. We didn't make any changes to what we ordered or said we would be making available. I'm sorry this isn't as expected. If this is a dealbreaker for you, I can cover your shipping to return it for a full refund.

So yeah. The few dorks on this site who assume there's some kind of malice behind the way this press turned out... we can drop the witch-hunt and slander now. The dude is willing to cover shipping costs for you to send your copy back in for a full refund, if you're truly disappointed with the way this turned out. It sounds like he'll have a bone to pick with the pressing factory.

I get the argument that he could have [should have] cracked the shrink on a few copies to make sure they met the specifications of the order that was placed, but... again, I imagine he'd have to do that for every colored variant of every release that arrives on his doorstep. Feasible for a larger operation. But it requires hardly any empathy to imagine that he's got his hands pretty full. At least he's willing to appease the customer here.