The Smashing Pumpkins – Adore

just bought a copy of this and am listening to this on a dedicated mono cartridge. WOW does this pressing sound good. Billy sounds as if he is right infront of me. Nice highs and deep bass. I have the modern stereo press which also sounds good. I will have to play this pressing with my stereo cart as well to see if it is a massive difference in sound, but at the moment I deeply feel this is the best pressing of the record when combined with the mono cart

Anyone know how this compares to the 2022 EU repressing which seems to have much better word of mouth on quality of sound?

An ultimately disappointing first stereo edition on vinyl. On the plus side, beautiful foil printed cover art. But the extra thick and heavy gatefold sleeve is difficult to squeeze the lps into and out of, which carries the danger of scratching. The sound is so-so - there's practically no stereo as such to speak of - most everything sounds sandwiched between the speakers and there's little soundstage most of the time, though there are some keyboard sounds that occasionally appear left and/or right. The pressing is ok, fairly quiet. At the end of the day I decided against this album - I like some of the gothic vibe and there's some decent bass playing but Corgan's whine and leaning heavily into repetitive notes got to irritate me and now I cannot unhear it. Ho hum reject pile.

The gatefold is too thick, records are a bit warped (but still ok) and there are regular discret cracklings on most sides (but let's say it's still "okay"). For the price (50€ ?) we could expect better stuff. I own brand new and better double LPs I bought 20/25€.

For as much as this album costs, I would expect it to have nice inner sleeves and not the cheapest paper ones.

The records came in paper sleeves but with the option of nice lyric sleeves. Unfortunently the records have papermarks and scuffs all over but after a little clean it actually sounds really silent and good, was not expecting that. So overall I am happy with the music. As usual with these SP reissues the sleeves are too big for the cover so it's a shore trying to get them in again after listening. Beutiful gatefold though

Great sounding record...had it since the late 90s as used to collect Pumpkins stuff and only this last year got a record player. Kills me that there's a skip on Crestfallen...can't even see any imperfections that would cause it on the vinyl. Great album though.

Bought a new and factory sealed copy, Disc 1 was full of scratches on both sides and there is also a weird bump on side a, looks like melted metal drop solidified there. 1-2 mm in height and 3-4 mm in diameter. Disc 2 looks a lot better but not like a new one, few marks from the lousy inner sleeves. Not what you expecting from 50€ new album. Not good!

Well this my thrid copy now while my last 2 copies had scratches deep grooved paper chafing.
This copy looks clean disc one had 3 x5 minutes es in my ultrasonic to 8/10
Disc two I'm at 2×8 minute es still continuous surface noise but finally starting to quieten down a fair bit but not fixed on side D second last song.
Starting to think was this song recorded like this 🤣
Only one song so I'm going for another few ultrasonic cleans see if I gain clarity. If not atleast the rest of the tracks are mint now after ultrasonic cleaning the hell out of both 🤣

When listening to this mono "mix", I hear nothing more than a stereo mix with the 'mono' button pressed on the receiver... turns out that's what it is, which is disappointing... that is to say, a proper mono 'mix' of this album would be very interesting to hear, as mixing in mono (on a 2-speaker system) brings about a whole different dimension to the music that is more akin to what you hear live from a band, vs. what you hear when they have millions of dollars of studio time at their disposal to tweak a stereo mix that is only appreciated when you're head is placed in a perfect position between the speakers... a mono mix is enjoyed everywhere in the room... here is the article that talks about the mono 'mix' (really a collapsed stereo mix) https://www.digitaltrends.com/music/billy-corgan-smashing-pumpkins-adore-reissue/