Rina Sawayama – Sawayama

Love this album but have been so disappointed with the sound of this one. Like other people have said, it feels very flat and compressed.

I rarely chime in quality of pressings as I find a lot of it to be very anecdotal opinions. However, I feel I need to say something about this record - it's abysmal, like this is beyond quality of pressing or QC at the pressing plant - the master on this record is just incompetent - it's the most lifeless record in my entire collection - the soundstaging is non-existent - the dynamics are flat - the entirety of the album appears to come from a very small space, at the same middling volume from a space roughly about 30cm in the middle of my speakers - doesn't fill the room in any way shape or form - just don't ever ever buy this release and I say this as someone who now has to offload this to someone. For the fans only.

Much more dynamic and high quality than the 2020 pressing, and the bass really pops here, which is pretty important for this album in particular. Very very happy I bought this even after I found the 2020 pressing to be lackluster.

Awful awful mastering. Very compressed, not punchy at all. We may need to put an AMBER Alert out on the bass, because it is missing.

I'm pretty sure the misprint has been fixed in the recent repress. Mine arrived last week and have the spine say "Rina Sawayama" instead of "Rina Sawayam"

I am so happy I was able to get a copy of this, even if the spine has a mistake. Sound is absolutely perfect.

Looks great except mine arrived horribly packaged and completely damaged. Sound is ok, not a huge improvement from standard pressing.

Anyone who have this supposed 2023 repress give a review on how it sounds? Appreciate it!

Update: I bought the repress. I can safely say that the sound quality is a lot better than what people are saying about the original 2020 pressing. Tracks like Comme Des Garson really do come alive here with the punchy bass. You don't have to crank volume all the way up either, as many said about the 2020 pressing. Overall, pretty satisfied. Not the best sounding vinyl I own, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Did they finally re-cut this or give it a new mastering…? The matrixes are different from all other pressings and the copy I bought sounds a good deal more dynamic than all prior releases (which were all from the same cut/mastering and sounded absolutely horrendously compressed and lifeless). I still have to turn the volume up quite a bit but once it’s loud, it’s pretty punchy, which is something that could not be said for the previous releases no matter how loud you cranked it. Am I crazy? Is it a placebo effect?

Terrible pressing but it's no better or worse than the original gold to my ears. What a shame since this is such a fantastic collection of songs. Just play it real low.