System Of A Down – Toxicity

Wow. This is an EPIC ALBUM but very underrated IMO. This VMP pressing sounds amazing on my sound system. I compared it to the original US CD version and the second US vinyl pressing from 2018 and it wins hands down in every way. Clean and powerful sound! I went to their show last week in São Paulo and the live sound was really incredible. I can say that this pressing delivers a sound quality very similar to their live sound. The loudness is not as high but when you crunch the volume, the dynamic range, spread and power all grow together! What an amazing pressing. AND there's an additional track at the end of the record with that traditional armenian instrumental session. Maybe the US original can sounds better, but I'm really happy with this one. Strongly recommended.

No shit the master is of a CD and is trash on vinyl

Holy shit. This sounds excellent on my system (no pun intended) … clear Serj vocals. Bass and low end from Daron’s Drop C guitar is crisp and FAT. Drumming is great. No surface noise for me. Just thick sound

This is one of the very few MRP-pressed records in my collection without major quality problems. Unfortunately, getting a good record from them, in my experience, is a fluke. But I lucked out on this one aside from it being pressed ever-so-slightly off-center. Not perfect and certainly not a high fidelity release but this is a winner as far as MRP is concerned.

I have waited way too long to get this album on vinyl primarily due to all the negative reviews (from other listings of this record - they all are most likely using the same source file). I finally bought this as I really wanted to have a physical copy of the record.

This is not an audiophile record and to be honest I don’t know that many bands from early 2000 aiming for that kind of sonic quality. However, this is better than what’s on Spotify/Qobuz sonically:

1. I always thought the record sounded a bit mono due to lack of separation and squashed dynamics on most digital formats. The mastering for vinyl, although done from a digital source, was done to give the songs more room to breathe. Soundstage is wide enough to make it an enjoyable listen.

2. I was actually impressed how the bass and drums didn’t sound muddy or buried in the mix and they both had decent punch and clarity. You can listen to Rick Ruben produced albums from this era (example: RATM - Renegades or any Linkin Park records) and the first thing you will notice is how the drum crashes and hihat sounds brittle, loud and harsh. This was not the case with this record.This to me was the biggest surprise.

3. I read quite a few reviews on how a lot of music is cramped into one disc. To be fair, this is a 43 min record. Ideally you would want 15 min each side but ~ 21 min on each side is not the worst case scenario. I have records with almost 28 mins on one side (Master of Puppets Side B and a lot of Miles Davis’s experimental era records). In short, the grooves were not close enough to cause inner groove distortion for me. I have a microline stylus so that helps.

4. Cover artwork is pixelated as others have mentioned. I am guessing the artwork was meant for CD cases so it was never designed with a large format’s cover in mind. Might be wrong on that one.

I have heard the original US pressing sounds very dynamic but the natural, acceptable dynamic sounding record you get for 1/5th the price, I have no desire to seek out the original. I am happy this is now in my collection.

I love System of a Dwon, they might be my favorite band.

Sounds great! No surface noise between songs. A banger of an lp! Buy with confidence

Bought it when it came out in 2018. The sound is great. But my problem is the cover, all blurred, back is fine. But the cover quality is awful.

Sorry for my English cause I’m French ;) have you noticed there is a misprint on the vinyl itself (Toxic instead of Toxicity) that can make us think it is an unofficial(all the unofficial don’t have this misprint like the official 2001).Now I noticed on the inner sleeve in the down and right part under the logo American recordings,it is written 2001,2018 Columbia records that make me think all the others editions from previous years are unofficial.My theory is that they did it on purpose to differenciate the official editions from 2018 with all the other unofficial editions that were sold).What do you think about it?

I personally had no issues with my copy. Lovely pressing, no surface noise or anything. Classic album, 100% recommend.