How to Spot a Bad Pressing or a Fake

Why counterfeits exist in this market at all

The condition that produces unlicensed pressings is simple: demand for a title substantially exceeds the legitimate supply of it. That is why the problem concentrates in specific places rather than being spread evenly — in-demand 1990s hip-hop is the worst affected area on this site, because those albums are enormously wanted and were not always kept in print by their rights holders.

It is worth being proportionate. Buying a current, in-print reissue of a classic rock album from a major catalog label carries almost no counterfeit risk. The risk rises sharply with scarcity, price and marketplace-seller listings, and these checks are calibrated for that end.

Four checks before you buy

Thirty seconds, in this order.

1. Does the label match the album? The strongest single signal. Legitimate reissues come through the catalog arm that owns the rights — the major-label catalog divisions, or the specialist reissue labels that license properly. A canonical album appearing on a label with no history and no other catalog is the classic profile of an unlicensed pressing.
2. Is the price wildly below the market? Compare against several other copies of the same edition. On an in-demand title, a price a fraction of everyone else’s is not a find. Note the inverse is not a safety guarantee — counterfeits are sometimes priced at market precisely to avoid this.
3. What does the listing decline to say? This is the most underrated check. Legitimate listings generally name an edition or series, a catalog number, and a disc count. Vague listings that name none of those are vague on purpose, because specifics invite verification.
4. Does the disc count fit the running time? A 12-inch LP at 33 rpm holds roughly 20 to 22 minutes a side before the cut has to be compromised. A seventy-minute album offered as a single disc is either a squeezed cut or not what it says. This one catches bad legitimate pressings as well as fakes.

Four checks when it arrives

Do these before you play it, because a record you have played is harder to return.

1. Look at the printing. Counterfeits reproduce artwork from scans, and printing is where that becomes visible: soft or pixelated text, fonts that are close but not right, colors that look photocopied, a sleeve that is thinner or glossier than expected. Compare against an image of the official release.
2. Look at the center label. Check it is centered and square to the spindle hole. A visibly rotated or off-center label is a manufacturing-quality signal in its own right, and it frequently travels with an off-center pressing — which makes sustained notes waver audibly as the groove orbits the spindle.
3. Read the dead wax. The smooth area between the last groove and the label. Legitimate pressings almost always carry stamped or etched matrix and catalog numbers there, identifying the lacquer. Completely blank dead wax on a supposedly official release is a warning sign, and a number that contradicts the claimed edition is a stronger one.
4. Tilt it under a light. You are looking for two things. Non-fill shows as dull, frosted patches on an otherwise glossy surface, where the vinyl did not flow fully into the groove — it sounds like roughness that cleaning never fixes, and it is a legitimate return. Then set it on the platter and watch the rim at eye level: a mild rise is fine, a wobble that makes the arm bounce is not.

Bad record, or bad setup?

This is the section that matters most, because the overwhelming majority of “bad pressing” complaints are not pressings. The symptoms overlap almost completely, so the distinguishing tests matter.

• Random crackle spread across the side = dust. It is uneven, it moves around, and a brush or a wet clean removes most of it. This is by far the most common complaint and the cheapest to fix. A basic kit settles it.
• A tick that repeats at the same point every rotation = damage or a defect. Locked to the rotation, unchanged by cleaning. That is the record.
• Harshness that gets worse toward the middle of a side = your cartridge. Inner-groove distortion, caused by alignment error or incorrect tracking force, not by the pressing. If it happens on every record at the same place in the side, it is definitively the setup. The alignment guide fixes it.
• A steady low hum = grounding. Usually the ground wire between deck and phono stage left unattached. Nothing to do with the record at all.
• Sustained notes wavering = speed or centering. If it happens on one record only, suspect an off-center pressing. If it happens on all of them, suspect the belt or motor — the troubleshooting sequence separates them.
• Distortion only on heavy bass = tracking force. Large groove excursions are the first thing to break down when the force is set too light.

The single most useful diagnostic: does it happen on other records? A fault that follows the record is the record. A fault that follows the position in the side, or appears everywhere, is the turntable.

Where to buy to reduce the risk

Three habits do most of the work.

• Prefer in-print current pressings for anything canonical. They are cheap, replaceable and almost never counterfeit, which is exactly why every list in this hub is built from them rather than from collector copies.
• Prefer sellers with a returns policy. The checks above only help if you can act on them. This matters more than any single visual test.
• Buy common records used, scarce records new. A used copy of a record that exists everywhere is a low-stakes purchase. Applying the same reasoning to something scarce is how people overpay for a damaged or fake copy.

Finally, look after what you buy. A legitimate, well-pressed record played with a worn stylus becomes a bad record permanently — groove damage does not clean off. The manufacturers’ own stylus hour figures are lower than most owners expect, and replacing on schedule protects the whole collection rather than one record.