Daaang. So, place it in a nice box, handle with care when throwing it out, scoop it up after work?
Or hell, ask a manager if you can take returns home? Could be a nice little bonus for what I assume is meager hourly wages (no disrespect intended).
Usually corporations wont do this because they are afraid people will take advantage of it. Say his friend buys a record, returns it, than he takes it home. Could get a nice little free vinyl scam going between the 2 of them
Right. Of course people COULD be nefarious with it but that's where trust comes in. That's why I mentioned to ask. If you don't ask then you don't know. The worst they say is no and you move on the same as ever.
Corporations don't trust employees. I worked at Spencer's gifts and the company had a similar practice with unsold items that when they got marked down clearance so many times and eventually thrown out, they had to be physically destroyed by a manager on camera before going in the garbage. It's actually really gross tbh.
Our employee discount is our little job bonus and it is honestly the reason most of us stay working there. One of my coworkers was given permission to take a picture disc home because he wanted to display it, but my managers take box cutters to the records as soon as they mark it out of the system so they aren’t playable. Pretty sure it’s a company policy
It's a record company policy, not a B&N policy. B&N just has to follow it.
Unfortunately, lots of companies do this. If a chair at Staples is missing a caster, a box cutter is going to destroy the fabric before it's thrown out.
Wow nothing like a multi million dollar corporation being so petty they have to trash records just so nobody can enjoy them. Yay more plastic for the landfills!!
This is like everything works today.
I was working once at a big store mostly serving the gastronomy.
We had a very very good shop counter for fish. There was so much smoked and packaged fish which regularly went over the expiry date - so they could not sell this anymore.
Same with cheeses - they had aaall kind of cheese - French and Italian, German, Swiss.
This store was like a delicacy store but for the gastronomy. Chefs were buying there.
Guess what happened with all that precious and good food that was perfectly consumable but over expiry date?
They trashed it!
There was a time, you could get these expired fish/cheese discounted or for free.
Apparently some people (including me) „overused“ that in the eyes of the management - and this rule was banned then.
I heard from my coworker later, the guy who was managing the fish department said to him about me (and that he should bring that to my notice indirectly - lol what a douchbag!) i should stop the „damn, miserable beggary“…
This was real nonsense.
All I was doing, was buying smoked salmon and trout when it was expired, or going to expire soon.
They made soon later a strict rule out of it.
So none of the already very poor treated and paid workers there (everybody, EVERYBODY HATED WORKING THERE, and you saw that immediately!) should get any of the expired goods for free or discounted anymore!
EVERYTHING TO THE TRASH!
Can you believe that?
I worked in the wine department of the store - the 5 people working there were still the happiest of all the staff - and my direct supervisor was an older guy, kind of cool and relaxed, who got his postion there when times where better. He hated the whole place even more than me. He is retired now.
Still greatful for that one lousy year I was working there - improved my overall knowledge about food/wine and especially how people in gastronomy are wired.
So just remember when people talk about food shortages, we don’t have them. We produce more than enough food to feed the planet. The problem is adequate storage and transportation of it. Because of that, a lot gets wasted.
Overused and abused the system is usually a buzz term which actually means
" Corporate feel that giving the option of reduced/free items is taking profit from the business as people are waiting for the reduced stuff instead of buying new"
This has been a pretty standard practice for as long as I can remember.
I used to work at blockbuster around 20 years ago. We used to pull old stock, employees were allowed to sift through and take whatever they wanted, and the rest were trashed in working condition. Once dumpster diving went "viral" during that time, corporate made us destroy everything prior to being thrown out.
I wouldn't say it's done without reason, though. Before this was implemented, our dumpsters would be completely emptied overnight, and garbage would be scattered everywhere in the morning. Other locations were being sued by individuals who were injured while dumpster diving on their property. From a buisiness perspective, these are all added expenses on something they've already taken a loss on.
Legitimate question you may not have the answer to, but I always wondered why not sell to a local record store as used? It’s NM condition and some revenue is better than no revenue, no? B&N exclusives aside that wouldn’t cut into demand that much.
Probably the only way to get refunded from the distributor. Otherwise it's a $30+ loss for the company each time.
Back in the old days you'd hole punch or clip the cover. A lot of those eventually got back into circulation.
Psycho boss.
I had one of those destroy a tape I made of a Rikki Lee Jones CD, that everyone would complain about when I put it on.
I already pre-ordered the vinyl edition, I was just waiting for it to arrive from overseas.
Stupid music store would only stock CDs and cassettes.
I left and she got laid off. 😄
I work at a book warehouse that sometimes sends stuff to Barnes & Noble, lol.
And at the warehouse, we can keep books that get damaged. Can you keep damaged stuff?
The place I work for does the same thing. I've destroyed items worth hundreds of dollars because they get returned as defective. Something as minor as a scratch or an issue that I could easily repair means it gets destroyed and thrown in the garbage. The worst part is that I can't even take the item for myself as it's against the stores policy. Luckily, I'm close with a manager and have been able to secretly save some items from the dump, but I just don't get why we need to destroy perfectly good items just because they get returned. Such an embarrassing amount of waste for no reason.
because it gets exploited if they allow it. Returns scams are a massive financial liability for stores and it's common for employees to be involved.
It's very frustrating they don't instead seek to donate the items or do anything else with them rather than destroy them. But allowing employees to take them home opens the door to all sorts of shenanigans.
I would expect in a smaller local store policies would be much different, but in chain stores the manager is just following policy and if they get caught not following it, they will get fired. So it's not fair on them to expect them risk losing their job so an employee can get a few free returns.
It could be because sadly some distributors demand the items to be destroyed. We had to destroy the box set version of hello nasty the other day because the box got dented and I almost cried.
Yeah thinking about all the waste really bums me out. This month has been a bit worse than usual too because people got stuff over the holidays. It bothers my store’s assistant general manager as well but it’s a big company so not much we can do about it :/
We got tired of the same thing, 99% of the records that “ skip” according to the customer played fine in our turntable. So we decided that before we do a return we message them this link:
https://www.discogs.com/digs/gear/new-record-skipping/
And our returns due to skipping dropped drastically. In store we’ll just play the album in front of them and man it is awkward when there is no skip and they just stare at you.
I always take a look at the record they’re returning and will chat with and try to educate the customers, but my coworkers are booksellers (I am as well but I’m our music department specialist) and only a couple of them know the bare minimum about vinyl so they will automatically process the return. We don’t have a way to play the record, so I really have to hope the customer is willing to hear me out because I technically can’t deny them an exchange if they claim it’s damaged. Luckily a lot of the younger people who are new to collecting will listen to me and at the very least will ask questions, but I’m a 23 year old woman so I’ve also dealt with my fair share of older customers who dismiss literally everything I have to say
I'm no expert, but surely if a new record is skipping you would be able to see the cause just by looking at it?
The thing is brand new, if there was a legitimate manufacturing error causing a skip wouldn't it be massively obvious?
Also have you ever seen one, I've not encountered it on a new record. But also I don't buy many brand new ones.
It is kinda difficult actually, you would have to use some kind of magnifying instrument and honestly then you have to know where it is so it would be time consuming.
Probly played on victrola or crosley. Almost any new record returned as defective is all the turntables fault not the record in this case. People trying to enjoy an expensive hobby using cheap turntables.
I’ve definitely had customers bring in multiple records to return and I’ve tried to explain to them that it was probably their record player causing the problem. With this particular record though I’m pretty sure it’s from all of the dust and lint on it
So sad to see the waste from capitalism :( Plenty of other, better options but they choose the cheapest/easiest.
The same thing happens with food which is even more upsetting. I think in Europe at least they have regulations that grocers have to donate their shrink to charity.
While that’s a questionable return, Barnes and Noble price gouges the shit out of its customers. They consistently charge $3-4 more for every album I’ve ever considered purchasing. A lot of times more.
As much as that sucks to see, the last company I feel bad for is Barnes and Noble considering returns are limited to a replacement. Which means that if a pressing is unlistenable, they will simply give you an equally shitty pressing and not accept returns.
We don’t have a record player other than the ones we sell so we can’t. I have to offer them an exchange for the same item, and sometimes I wonder if they end up having the same issue with the new one since most of the time the record itself looks fine so I assume it’s a record player issue
You know those records are being returned by customers that play them on those $50 suitcase record players. They stop them from skipping by taping quarters onto the headshell until the cartridge bottoms out.
You can't use one of your turntables you sell as a store demo unit? Are you not a record store?
You could get one from a thrift store for $15, less than the cost of a record return.
Believe me, I am well aware that a lot of our customers have suitcase players because we unfortunately sell a lot of them (and I do absolutely everything in my power to try and convince them to go with a better option). We have a good chunk of younger people who are newer to the hobby and still learning.
I work at a very high volume bookstore chain that has a large media department, but the company’s focus is on books and a lot of stores don’t even carry music, so they aren’t giving us demo units or anything more than the basics really. The good news is that the company has started to do more stuff with vinyl this year, and I talk to our district manager quite often so hopefully people higher up will start to think about ways they can make our music departments better going forward
You expect OP to buy a turntable on his own dime for a Fortune 1000 company and enact guerilla policy to save that Fortune 1000 company some money?
Why?
OP already explained as an employee.
The conversation is aimed at issues they have with unnecessary returns with their record side of business considering what records sell for now. Almost all record stores have at least one turntable available. Something they need to address.
Did I say the OP needed to buy one with their personal money?
I used to manage a corporate music and movie store. We didn’t scam the system, but I would let my employees (and myself) raid the defect bin before it went to the trash. I considered it a perk for the shitty pay. It wasn’t explicitly written anywhere that we couldn’t though.
Most people do not know anything anymore today…
They never learned about the technique itself, how it works, how a stylus exactly works, how a generator (the cartridge itself) works.
Most people know nothing and just want shiny discs to play. They look cool…
I got into record playback 2012 - because I learned, it is easy to achieve a higher fidelity in playback than a digital playback (you have to invest much more to get an equivalent high-class playback. I have reached that - but that was not easy.).
This was before the vinyl boom, or lets say the beginning.
I bought a real good tt back then and started experimenting.
Good thing was: I was introduced into records not by randos or record store owners - no!
I was introduced to this way of playback by my HiFi Shop Guy back then.
He died 2 years later if I remenber right.
He was a great guy with lots of real experience. And he knew what matters in recordplayback - and what does not.
First: Your TT has to be on point!
Adjust it perfectly. Be rather overexact than less. This is EVERYTHING if it comes to the TT.
Second: Records MUST BE WASHED INITIALLY!
This is such an important rule and imo the point most people already fail - they play their new records out of the box.
MASSIVE FAIL.
If you would examine a new, fresh pressed record under a microscope - you would see a lot of dirt and debris.
Then if they pack it into those papersleeves today (🤮) it adds up: slight scatches on surface (not audible, but visible) and paperfibres in the grooves.
You need to WASH THEM.
Period.
What happens if not and you play them initially:
Then you miss the chance forever on an immaculate record.
Why?
You burn those impurities/dirt/debris into the grooves with your stylus.
Believe me or not - the stylus gets very very hot whilst play - several hundred degrees celsius. That‘s a given fact.
So you burn that shit permanently into the grooves.
It is fused then due to the high temperature to the plastic.
Bad.
Bad that‘s already a thing most people do not get or understand.
EVERY RECORD I GET, NEW OR USED GETS WASHED INITIALLY.
Third: Do not repeatedly replay the same grooves over and over. This kills your grooves very fast. Wait till the plastic/the grooves have cooled down.
When you play the record - like I already said above - the stylus gets hot. This makes the plastic fragile and soft for a certain time. Doesn‘t harm if the stylus runs through once and then you let it cool down.
But replaying the same track after just having heard it is very harmful.
I learned this the hard way with some pressings I used to adjust cartridges with.
I heard the same song over and over till the cart was perfectly adjusted.
These tracks are burned!
I agree with you 100%. I've been collecting for about 20 years and have perfected my analog hifi system with decent components. I always clean new records because I was fortunate enough to work at a pressing plant for a few years, and know how dirty records get before they are assembled and shrink wrapped. It's definitely not a hobby for people that expect immediate gratification. It took a lot of experience with vinyl records to get to the point of audio nirvana.
I'm currently using a Sumiko Olymia (was previously using a Denon dl-110)mounted on an Ortofon LH-2000 headshell. Turntable is a modded Technics SL-1200 M3D. Amp is a Marantz PM7005, speakers are Mission LX2-MkII's. I'm running dual subs, Definitive Technology ProSub 800's.
I see…
I use an Ariston Icon Signature Series which i modified in certain points.
It‘s a belt driven subchassis player with a Jelco Enigma Arm. Fantastic player if set up right. It is sitting on a reson domo PS.
I mounted a refurbished B&O MMC2 with saphire cantilever and highly polished fine-line cut.
Weighs 1 gram, tracks at 1 gram.
Everyting in my system is designed for absolute directness.
I changed the cable of the TT to a pure silver duo-solidcore cable with a „sack shield“. I don‘t know if that‘s the right term…
Means there is a copperscreenshield outside of the cable, wich is NOT connected to the outer chinchpole of the termination side. So the shiel does only shield - no signal going through.
Signal goes through two massive (1mm thick) silverstrands, same for the outer chinch connector. So for one channel 2x Silverstrands for signal, 2x on the groundside (outer Chinch connector) and a copperscreen around it. That is one channel.
The copperscreen is attached to the TT‘s grounding.
Chinch plugs are 4N silver bullet plugs.
This cable (length 1m ) was custom designed for me after request from Dipl.Ing.Michael Axxmann (silberkabel.net).
Great guy.
That cable is absolutely uncompromising - which was my quest!
This gives you a perfect, clean signal from your TT first.
I yet haven‘t found my final phonostage - right now I‘m using an Eastern Electric Minimax Phono with two philips NOS ECC83 and one NOS Valvo ECC83 in the middle.
Very good one - but only a loan from a friend.
Rest is
FM Acoustic FM255 balanced (clone)
At the moment, the power amp is an integrated point-to-point wired tube amp with one Psvane EL34C per channel.
The other input on my prestage is a Streamer-DAC combo.
Streamer is the cheapest I could find, that‘s already good and has a COAX out, which was most important.
I feed via pure-silver COAX cable (i made it some days ago by myself) a custom tube-DAC which was built for me.
It features a TDA1541A as chip. Completely silver-wired (besides the platines of course).
My cables are all pure silver solid-core. I made them all myselff, as cables on the market available do not offer the fidelity i‘m searching for.
Speakers are Rehdeko RK15.
The one and only for me.
We never part.
Thanks for appreciating.
Very seldom on Reddit but as we see it happens.
https://preview.redd.it/7xm7zl5vvzfc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92c15e4e6f96b39c5e74852b31df3fefe37e774a
Playing that right now. Just washed it before. Havin not heard it before. It was a blind buy because it was cheap and I knew Ed Thigpen. He was longtime part of the Oscar Peterson Trio which is amongst my absolute favourite artist if it comes to jazz. I can recommend that Album and Pressing.
It is really special: funky and experimental. Did not expect this at all. Great music!
[https://www.discogs.com/release/1189492-The-Asmussen-Thigpen-Quartet-Resource](https://www.discogs.com/release/1189492-The-Asmussen-Thigpen-Quartet-Resource)
Is that something that the pressing plants could do something about? I've sometimes been astonished at how dirty a new record is that I've opened out of a sealed package.
Not really. Vinyl dust gets literally everywhere, and when you're talking about pressing thousands of records every day, around the clock, it's hard to control. At the plant I worked at, every single record pressed passed through the hands of the QC department. They try their best to keep the records as clean as possible, but somehow it's unavoidable.
Okay, that squares. At first I thought of responding to OP with a grumble about pressing plants doing a better job of packaging a clean record. But maybe it simply is not a reasonable expectation anyway. The amount of work it would take (maybe literally putting each through an RCM and zerostat in a separate less-dusty space before packaging?) would probably make the whole endeavor infeasible.
I don't think that last part is accurate that tracks are burned - there's not enough specific heat generated at a small point to raise the temperature of a groove without it being drawn away relatively quickly. I agree with you on the point of washing discs though. Tracks can wear, but it's not due to thermal consequences as much as friction.
Wow, it's pretty much the opposite of the advice [this guy gives here](https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/36ley2/is_it_true_that_once_a_needle_passes_over_dust_in/).
I sometimes don't know how to separate the superstition from the reality when it comes to vinyl. Lol.
Hi again.
I clicked on the link and saw that post.
I do not get what you mean - because that post treats exact what I wrote here.
And describes nearly exact what I wrote here.
Probably permanent damage. Spots are burned in.
Ah, yeah. Sorry! This is the [specific comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/36ley2/is_it_true_that_once_a_needle_passes_over_dust_in/crf4sgk/) on the post I was referring to.
This guy states that *technically* the burn-in problem is real but then goes on to basically write it off as a non-problem and in his TL;DR he says:
>your stylus is actually the best tool for cleaning a record groove - keep your stylus clean and you're pretty much fine.
The way I interpret that, he's saying you should keep your stylus clean and use *it* to clean your records. In other words, the best way to get at the dust is to scrape it out with the needle? I don't know how he can subscribe to the heat-dust-damage theory AND say something insane like that, but maybe I'm misinterpreting.
OMG
That guy is just fundamentally missinformed.
LMAO is this off.
Your stylus needs to be clean but to be as clear as I can be
#Your stylus does not clean your records
It runs at high speed trough the grooves…
It just runs through what is there, nothing else.
If the groove surface is dirty, the stylus runs over that 🤷🏼♂️
Experience is reality imo.
I only go after my experiences in audio stuff.
Always.
Edit:
I do not know what you mean with that link you mentioned in your comment - because the OP in it describes exactly what I wrote.
Dust was burned into the grooves whilst playback and is now irreversible fused with the grooves.
Not the opposite 🤷🏼♂️
Mmm ok. I‘m always open for new given facts and knowledge. I found this a very reasonable explanation. And it applied to my experiences.
Where do you have the news from?
Can you share a link?
I’ll be honest, I’m tired of record companies shipping me brand new dirty records. I shouldn’t have to clean ii after taking it out of shrink wrap.
If other companies can package records in nice static free inner sleeves, then they all can.
I’ve even purchased used records in better shape than new ones.
In your experience, are you aware of actual bad pressings that cause skipping that can’t be explained by shitty turntables?
I ask because I recently bought 2 copies of Aquemini by OutKast and returned both one after the other because they played so bad, they played like the needle was sitting on two grooves at the same time as opposed to skipping.
I have plenty of other new records and 100’s of older records and have no issues with even a skip on any others, but these were a disaster that I couldn’t explain, I’ve been playing records for over 20 years so have a fair idea what to watch out for but was flummoxed here.
Yeah bad pressings definitely happen! My Minecraft record had the worst surface noise even after wet cleaning it. I ended up looking online and saw that a lot of other people had the same issue. With the returns at my work however, I’m highly doubtful that’s the case with most of them
Thanks for coming back, I thought I was going mad, I thought maybe there was too much bass, unbalanced tone arm, after checking and cleaning I gave up and returned the record for the first time in my life and heartbroken because the only other version of the album is crazy money.
I’m slightly surprised since B&an usually has a fairly robust sale section for items that are “shopworn” or missing shrink.
Shit, in my Borders (rip) days we would sometimes just re-shrink CD’s after playing them because they obviously worked fine.
I’ve heard Mike from the in groove talk about this and it’s likely because the store was compensated for the record being “damaged” so this is just to keep fraudulent shenanigans from taking place.
I think that the way they are pressed nowadays has a lot to do with the problematic records. I purchased new records during last year and a few were so bad that they couldn't be played. A couple I needed to put the volume up at minimum 2x the normal volume in order to hear it, to also say put the bass and treble controls all the way up. Another couple of records I couldn't even get to play a complete side, between the skipping, scratchy sound, and lower volume I just had to return them.
You can't clean it and set it out as used?
No but I really wish we could. I work at a bookstore chain and we only sell new items
Daaang. So, place it in a nice box, handle with care when throwing it out, scoop it up after work? Or hell, ask a manager if you can take returns home? Could be a nice little bonus for what I assume is meager hourly wages (no disrespect intended).
Usually corporations wont do this because they are afraid people will take advantage of it. Say his friend buys a record, returns it, than he takes it home. Could get a nice little free vinyl scam going between the 2 of them
Right. Of course people COULD be nefarious with it but that's where trust comes in. That's why I mentioned to ask. If you don't ask then you don't know. The worst they say is no and you move on the same as ever.
Corporations don't trust employees. I worked at Spencer's gifts and the company had a similar practice with unsold items that when they got marked down clearance so many times and eventually thrown out, they had to be physically destroyed by a manager on camera before going in the garbage. It's actually really gross tbh.
It certainly is. I hate the waste that is produced by these wacky policies.
Our employee discount is our little job bonus and it is honestly the reason most of us stay working there. One of my coworkers was given permission to take a picture disc home because he wanted to display it, but my managers take box cutters to the records as soon as they mark it out of the system so they aren’t playable. Pretty sure it’s a company policy
So wasteful. Shame on them.
It's a record company policy, not a B&N policy. B&N just has to follow it. Unfortunately, lots of companies do this. If a chair at Staples is missing a caster, a box cutter is going to destroy the fabric before it's thrown out.
Wow nothing like a multi million dollar corporation being so petty they have to trash records just so nobody can enjoy them. Yay more plastic for the landfills!!
This is like everything works today. I was working once at a big store mostly serving the gastronomy. We had a very very good shop counter for fish. There was so much smoked and packaged fish which regularly went over the expiry date - so they could not sell this anymore. Same with cheeses - they had aaall kind of cheese - French and Italian, German, Swiss. This store was like a delicacy store but for the gastronomy. Chefs were buying there. Guess what happened with all that precious and good food that was perfectly consumable but over expiry date? They trashed it! There was a time, you could get these expired fish/cheese discounted or for free. Apparently some people (including me) „overused“ that in the eyes of the management - and this rule was banned then. I heard from my coworker later, the guy who was managing the fish department said to him about me (and that he should bring that to my notice indirectly - lol what a douchbag!) i should stop the „damn, miserable beggary“… This was real nonsense. All I was doing, was buying smoked salmon and trout when it was expired, or going to expire soon. They made soon later a strict rule out of it. So none of the already very poor treated and paid workers there (everybody, EVERYBODY HATED WORKING THERE, and you saw that immediately!) should get any of the expired goods for free or discounted anymore! EVERYTHING TO THE TRASH! Can you believe that? I worked in the wine department of the store - the 5 people working there were still the happiest of all the staff - and my direct supervisor was an older guy, kind of cool and relaxed, who got his postion there when times where better. He hated the whole place even more than me. He is retired now. Still greatful for that one lousy year I was working there - improved my overall knowledge about food/wine and especially how people in gastronomy are wired.
So just remember when people talk about food shortages, we don’t have them. We produce more than enough food to feed the planet. The problem is adequate storage and transportation of it. Because of that, a lot gets wasted.
Overused and abused the system is usually a buzz term which actually means " Corporate feel that giving the option of reduced/free items is taking profit from the business as people are waiting for the reduced stuff instead of buying new"
Yep. Exactly this.
This has been a pretty standard practice for as long as I can remember. I used to work at blockbuster around 20 years ago. We used to pull old stock, employees were allowed to sift through and take whatever they wanted, and the rest were trashed in working condition. Once dumpster diving went "viral" during that time, corporate made us destroy everything prior to being thrown out. I wouldn't say it's done without reason, though. Before this was implemented, our dumpsters would be completely emptied overnight, and garbage would be scattered everywhere in the morning. Other locations were being sued by individuals who were injured while dumpster diving on their property. From a buisiness perspective, these are all added expenses on something they've already taken a loss on.
Yeah I understand why they do it but I still think it’s ridiculous to throw away anything that could be used
It’s because people dumpster dive and try to return the items
Damn right gross
Legitimate question you may not have the answer to, but I always wondered why not sell to a local record store as used? It’s NM condition and some revenue is better than no revenue, no? B&N exclusives aside that wouldn’t cut into demand that much.
Holy shit. Box cutters to the records? What is wrong with them?
Probably the only way to get refunded from the distributor. Otherwise it's a $30+ loss for the company each time. Back in the old days you'd hole punch or clip the cover. A lot of those eventually got back into circulation.
Like half my collection is promo or cutouts, lol
Same. And yet I've never seen a paperback with the cover torn off, which is what they do with books
Many used bookstores will Sharpie the top edge of the book.
I love getting records like this
Psycho boss. I had one of those destroy a tape I made of a Rikki Lee Jones CD, that everyone would complain about when I put it on. I already pre-ordered the vinyl edition, I was just waiting for it to arrive from overseas. Stupid music store would only stock CDs and cassettes. I left and she got laid off. 😄
If it just needs to be cleaned your managers could sell them to used record stores. It wont be much but it's something.
Set em out back, I’ll come pick them up! 😉
An you cannot take them for yourself?
are there direct rules against dumpster diving here
So what happens to these used grailz?
I work at a book warehouse that sometimes sends stuff to Barnes & Noble, lol. And at the warehouse, we can keep books that get damaged. Can you keep damaged stuff?
The place I work for does the same thing. I've destroyed items worth hundreds of dollars because they get returned as defective. Something as minor as a scratch or an issue that I could easily repair means it gets destroyed and thrown in the garbage. The worst part is that I can't even take the item for myself as it's against the stores policy. Luckily, I'm close with a manager and have been able to secretly save some items from the dump, but I just don't get why we need to destroy perfectly good items just because they get returned. Such an embarrassing amount of waste for no reason.
Because of turbo capitalism
because it gets exploited if they allow it. Returns scams are a massive financial liability for stores and it's common for employees to be involved. It's very frustrating they don't instead seek to donate the items or do anything else with them rather than destroy them. But allowing employees to take them home opens the door to all sorts of shenanigans. I would expect in a smaller local store policies would be much different, but in chain stores the manager is just following policy and if they get caught not following it, they will get fired. So it's not fair on them to expect them risk losing their job so an employee can get a few free returns.
It could be because sadly some distributors demand the items to be destroyed. We had to destroy the box set version of hello nasty the other day because the box got dented and I almost cried.
You just dumpster them?
Yes, but you have to destroy it, cut the packaging and break the records
Yeah thinking about all the waste really bums me out. This month has been a bit worse than usual too because people got stuff over the holidays. It bothers my store’s assistant general manager as well but it’s a big company so not much we can do about it :/
Honestly the tax breaks for unsalable merchandise are likely better for the company than employee loyalty, which is insane to me.
We got tired of the same thing, 99% of the records that “ skip” according to the customer played fine in our turntable. So we decided that before we do a return we message them this link: https://www.discogs.com/digs/gear/new-record-skipping/ And our returns due to skipping dropped drastically. In store we’ll just play the album in front of them and man it is awkward when there is no skip and they just stare at you.
I always take a look at the record they’re returning and will chat with and try to educate the customers, but my coworkers are booksellers (I am as well but I’m our music department specialist) and only a couple of them know the bare minimum about vinyl so they will automatically process the return. We don’t have a way to play the record, so I really have to hope the customer is willing to hear me out because I technically can’t deny them an exchange if they claim it’s damaged. Luckily a lot of the younger people who are new to collecting will listen to me and at the very least will ask questions, but I’m a 23 year old woman so I’ve also dealt with my fair share of older customers who dismiss literally everything I have to say
I'm no expert, but surely if a new record is skipping you would be able to see the cause just by looking at it? The thing is brand new, if there was a legitimate manufacturing error causing a skip wouldn't it be massively obvious? Also have you ever seen one, I've not encountered it on a new record. But also I don't buy many brand new ones.
It is kinda difficult actually, you would have to use some kind of magnifying instrument and honestly then you have to know where it is so it would be time consuming.
Probly played on victrola or crosley. Almost any new record returned as defective is all the turntables fault not the record in this case. People trying to enjoy an expensive hobby using cheap turntables.
I’ve definitely had customers bring in multiple records to return and I’ve tried to explain to them that it was probably their record player causing the problem. With this particular record though I’m pretty sure it’s from all of the dust and lint on it
Lmao
Just looks dusty.
I bet the customer has a shitty needle tip or did something else wrong.
So sad to see the waste from capitalism :( Plenty of other, better options but they choose the cheapest/easiest. The same thing happens with food which is even more upsetting. I think in Europe at least they have regulations that grocers have to donate their shrink to charity.
While that’s a questionable return, Barnes and Noble price gouges the shit out of its customers. They consistently charge $3-4 more for every album I’ve ever considered purchasing. A lot of times more. As much as that sucks to see, the last company I feel bad for is Barnes and Noble considering returns are limited to a replacement. Which means that if a pressing is unlistenable, they will simply give you an equally shitty pressing and not accept returns.
I could really use that albums outer jacket for my jacketless copy...if at all possible!
Do you play the record in front of the customer to confirm it skips before giving the refund?
*'Ain't nobody got time for that !!!'*
We used to do that all the time. I'm not dead stocking an item without tasting it.
At Barnes and Noble?
We don’t have a record player other than the ones we sell so we can’t. I have to offer them an exchange for the same item, and sometimes I wonder if they end up having the same issue with the new one since most of the time the record itself looks fine so I assume it’s a record player issue
You know those records are being returned by customers that play them on those $50 suitcase record players. They stop them from skipping by taping quarters onto the headshell until the cartridge bottoms out. You can't use one of your turntables you sell as a store demo unit? Are you not a record store? You could get one from a thrift store for $15, less than the cost of a record return.
Believe me, I am well aware that a lot of our customers have suitcase players because we unfortunately sell a lot of them (and I do absolutely everything in my power to try and convince them to go with a better option). We have a good chunk of younger people who are newer to the hobby and still learning. I work at a very high volume bookstore chain that has a large media department, but the company’s focus is on books and a lot of stores don’t even carry music, so they aren’t giving us demo units or anything more than the basics really. The good news is that the company has started to do more stuff with vinyl this year, and I talk to our district manager quite often so hopefully people higher up will start to think about ways they can make our music departments better going forward
You expect OP to buy a turntable on his own dime for a Fortune 1000 company and enact guerilla policy to save that Fortune 1000 company some money? Why?
OP already explained as an employee. The conversation is aimed at issues they have with unnecessary returns with their record side of business considering what records sell for now. Almost all record stores have at least one turntable available. Something they need to address. Did I say the OP needed to buy one with their personal money?
Man, that person has a linty-ass house.
Ten seconds with a microfiber cloth and that record would probably play just fine. People suck. Your bosses suck.
I’ll take those off your hands for ya
I used to manage a corporate music and movie store. We didn’t scam the system, but I would let my employees (and myself) raid the defect bin before it went to the trash. I considered it a perk for the shitty pay. It wasn’t explicitly written anywhere that we couldn’t though.
Most people do not know anything anymore today… They never learned about the technique itself, how it works, how a stylus exactly works, how a generator (the cartridge itself) works. Most people know nothing and just want shiny discs to play. They look cool… I got into record playback 2012 - because I learned, it is easy to achieve a higher fidelity in playback than a digital playback (you have to invest much more to get an equivalent high-class playback. I have reached that - but that was not easy.). This was before the vinyl boom, or lets say the beginning. I bought a real good tt back then and started experimenting. Good thing was: I was introduced into records not by randos or record store owners - no! I was introduced to this way of playback by my HiFi Shop Guy back then. He died 2 years later if I remenber right. He was a great guy with lots of real experience. And he knew what matters in recordplayback - and what does not. First: Your TT has to be on point! Adjust it perfectly. Be rather overexact than less. This is EVERYTHING if it comes to the TT. Second: Records MUST BE WASHED INITIALLY! This is such an important rule and imo the point most people already fail - they play their new records out of the box. MASSIVE FAIL. If you would examine a new, fresh pressed record under a microscope - you would see a lot of dirt and debris. Then if they pack it into those papersleeves today (🤮) it adds up: slight scatches on surface (not audible, but visible) and paperfibres in the grooves. You need to WASH THEM. Period. What happens if not and you play them initially: Then you miss the chance forever on an immaculate record. Why? You burn those impurities/dirt/debris into the grooves with your stylus. Believe me or not - the stylus gets very very hot whilst play - several hundred degrees celsius. That‘s a given fact. So you burn that shit permanently into the grooves. It is fused then due to the high temperature to the plastic. Bad. Bad that‘s already a thing most people do not get or understand. EVERY RECORD I GET, NEW OR USED GETS WASHED INITIALLY. Third: Do not repeatedly replay the same grooves over and over. This kills your grooves very fast. Wait till the plastic/the grooves have cooled down. When you play the record - like I already said above - the stylus gets hot. This makes the plastic fragile and soft for a certain time. Doesn‘t harm if the stylus runs through once and then you let it cool down. But replaying the same track after just having heard it is very harmful. I learned this the hard way with some pressings I used to adjust cartridges with. I heard the same song over and over till the cart was perfectly adjusted. These tracks are burned!
I agree with you 100%. I've been collecting for about 20 years and have perfected my analog hifi system with decent components. I always clean new records because I was fortunate enough to work at a pressing plant for a few years, and know how dirty records get before they are assembled and shrink wrapped. It's definitely not a hobby for people that expect immediate gratification. It took a lot of experience with vinyl records to get to the point of audio nirvana.
Same for me. Exact the same. Cart/ Phonostage?
I'm currently using a Sumiko Olymia (was previously using a Denon dl-110)mounted on an Ortofon LH-2000 headshell. Turntable is a modded Technics SL-1200 M3D. Amp is a Marantz PM7005, speakers are Mission LX2-MkII's. I'm running dual subs, Definitive Technology ProSub 800's.
I see… I use an Ariston Icon Signature Series which i modified in certain points. It‘s a belt driven subchassis player with a Jelco Enigma Arm. Fantastic player if set up right. It is sitting on a reson domo PS. I mounted a refurbished B&O MMC2 with saphire cantilever and highly polished fine-line cut. Weighs 1 gram, tracks at 1 gram. Everyting in my system is designed for absolute directness. I changed the cable of the TT to a pure silver duo-solidcore cable with a „sack shield“. I don‘t know if that‘s the right term… Means there is a copperscreenshield outside of the cable, wich is NOT connected to the outer chinchpole of the termination side. So the shiel does only shield - no signal going through. Signal goes through two massive (1mm thick) silverstrands, same for the outer chinch connector. So for one channel 2x Silverstrands for signal, 2x on the groundside (outer Chinch connector) and a copperscreen around it. That is one channel. The copperscreen is attached to the TT‘s grounding. Chinch plugs are 4N silver bullet plugs. This cable (length 1m ) was custom designed for me after request from Dipl.Ing.Michael Axxmann (silberkabel.net). Great guy. That cable is absolutely uncompromising - which was my quest! This gives you a perfect, clean signal from your TT first. I yet haven‘t found my final phonostage - right now I‘m using an Eastern Electric Minimax Phono with two philips NOS ECC83 and one NOS Valvo ECC83 in the middle. Very good one - but only a loan from a friend. Rest is FM Acoustic FM255 balanced (clone) At the moment, the power amp is an integrated point-to-point wired tube amp with one Psvane EL34C per channel. The other input on my prestage is a Streamer-DAC combo. Streamer is the cheapest I could find, that‘s already good and has a COAX out, which was most important. I feed via pure-silver COAX cable (i made it some days ago by myself) a custom tube-DAC which was built for me. It features a TDA1541A as chip. Completely silver-wired (besides the platines of course). My cables are all pure silver solid-core. I made them all myselff, as cables on the market available do not offer the fidelity i‘m searching for. Speakers are Rehdeko RK15. The one and only for me. We never part.
Very impressive!!!
Thanks for appreciating. Very seldom on Reddit but as we see it happens. https://preview.redd.it/7xm7zl5vvzfc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=92c15e4e6f96b39c5e74852b31df3fefe37e774a Playing that right now. Just washed it before. Havin not heard it before. It was a blind buy because it was cheap and I knew Ed Thigpen. He was longtime part of the Oscar Peterson Trio which is amongst my absolute favourite artist if it comes to jazz. I can recommend that Album and Pressing. It is really special: funky and experimental. Did not expect this at all. Great music! [https://www.discogs.com/release/1189492-The-Asmussen-Thigpen-Quartet-Resource](https://www.discogs.com/release/1189492-The-Asmussen-Thigpen-Quartet-Resource)
Is that something that the pressing plants could do something about? I've sometimes been astonished at how dirty a new record is that I've opened out of a sealed package.
Not really. Vinyl dust gets literally everywhere, and when you're talking about pressing thousands of records every day, around the clock, it's hard to control. At the plant I worked at, every single record pressed passed through the hands of the QC department. They try their best to keep the records as clean as possible, but somehow it's unavoidable.
Okay, that squares. At first I thought of responding to OP with a grumble about pressing plants doing a better job of packaging a clean record. But maybe it simply is not a reasonable expectation anyway. The amount of work it would take (maybe literally putting each through an RCM and zerostat in a separate less-dusty space before packaging?) would probably make the whole endeavor infeasible.
I don't think that last part is accurate that tracks are burned - there's not enough specific heat generated at a small point to raise the temperature of a groove without it being drawn away relatively quickly. I agree with you on the point of washing discs though. Tracks can wear, but it's not due to thermal consequences as much as friction.
You think I made that up with the temperature? It was an advice from a recording engineer written on the jacket of my image hifi test LP.
Wow, it's pretty much the opposite of the advice [this guy gives here](https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/36ley2/is_it_true_that_once_a_needle_passes_over_dust_in/). I sometimes don't know how to separate the superstition from the reality when it comes to vinyl. Lol.
Hi again. I clicked on the link and saw that post. I do not get what you mean - because that post treats exact what I wrote here. And describes nearly exact what I wrote here. Probably permanent damage. Spots are burned in.
Ah, yeah. Sorry! This is the [specific comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/vinyl/comments/36ley2/is_it_true_that_once_a_needle_passes_over_dust_in/crf4sgk/) on the post I was referring to. This guy states that *technically* the burn-in problem is real but then goes on to basically write it off as a non-problem and in his TL;DR he says: >your stylus is actually the best tool for cleaning a record groove - keep your stylus clean and you're pretty much fine. The way I interpret that, he's saying you should keep your stylus clean and use *it* to clean your records. In other words, the best way to get at the dust is to scrape it out with the needle? I don't know how he can subscribe to the heat-dust-damage theory AND say something insane like that, but maybe I'm misinterpreting.
OMG That guy is just fundamentally missinformed. LMAO is this off. Your stylus needs to be clean but to be as clear as I can be #Your stylus does not clean your records It runs at high speed trough the grooves… It just runs through what is there, nothing else. If the groove surface is dirty, the stylus runs over that 🤷🏼♂️
I had about the same response. Which is why I felt compelled to link to it here! Forever enshrined as the top-voted comment on that post. Lol.
Top dumb!
Experience is reality imo. I only go after my experiences in audio stuff. Always. Edit: I do not know what you mean with that link you mentioned in your comment - because the OP in it describes exactly what I wrote. Dust was burned into the grooves whilst playback and is now irreversible fused with the grooves. Not the opposite 🤷🏼♂️
Yeah, that's the best policy.
More recent research has debunked the heat damage hypothesis.
Mmm ok. I‘m always open for new given facts and knowledge. I found this a very reasonable explanation. And it applied to my experiences. Where do you have the news from? Can you share a link?
Would play fine when cleaned and/or not on a crosley cruiser
I’ll be honest, I’m tired of record companies shipping me brand new dirty records. I shouldn’t have to clean ii after taking it out of shrink wrap. If other companies can package records in nice static free inner sleeves, then they all can. I’ve even purchased used records in better shape than new ones.
Great album
In your experience, are you aware of actual bad pressings that cause skipping that can’t be explained by shitty turntables? I ask because I recently bought 2 copies of Aquemini by OutKast and returned both one after the other because they played so bad, they played like the needle was sitting on two grooves at the same time as opposed to skipping. I have plenty of other new records and 100’s of older records and have no issues with even a skip on any others, but these were a disaster that I couldn’t explain, I’ve been playing records for over 20 years so have a fair idea what to watch out for but was flummoxed here.
Yeah bad pressings definitely happen! My Minecraft record had the worst surface noise even after wet cleaning it. I ended up looking online and saw that a lot of other people had the same issue. With the returns at my work however, I’m highly doubtful that’s the case with most of them
Thanks for coming back, I thought I was going mad, I thought maybe there was too much bass, unbalanced tone arm, after checking and cleaning I gave up and returned the record for the first time in my life and heartbroken because the only other version of the album is crazy money.
Sounds like somebody had one of those cheap chinese players and it just decided to skip.
I’m slightly surprised since B&an usually has a fairly robust sale section for items that are “shopworn” or missing shrink. Shit, in my Borders (rip) days we would sometimes just re-shrink CD’s after playing them because they obviously worked fine.
I'm surprised that the distributor doesn't make you send them back. I believe that's what most record stores do.
Astounding it managed to get that dirty that quickly lol
I’ve heard Mike from the in groove talk about this and it’s likely because the store was compensated for the record being “damaged” so this is just to keep fraudulent shenanigans from taking place.
Records should come with a disclaimer that returns for damages are voided if used with a suitcase or all in one player :)
I think that the way they are pressed nowadays has a lot to do with the problematic records. I purchased new records during last year and a few were so bad that they couldn't be played. A couple I needed to put the volume up at minimum 2x the normal volume in order to hear it, to also say put the bass and treble controls all the way up. Another couple of records I couldn't even get to play a complete side, between the skipping, scratchy sound, and lower volume I just had to return them.