He Digitized His Project Hail Mary Vinyl Box Set. Then He Found Something Strange.

One of the interesting things about digitizing vinyl is that sometimes you discover something you were never supposed to see.

A collector recently received Mutant's elaborate limited-edition vinyl box set for Project Hail Mary. The package is exactly the kind of release designed to appeal to collectors: Daniel Pemberton's score spread across three 140-gram gold records, a fourth zoetrope record containing songs heard in the film, a booklet, slipmat, and patch. Retail pricing varies, but the set has been listed around $130 and higher.

It certainly looks premium.

But when the collector began archiving the records at 24-bit/96 kHz, he noticed something strange.

According to the spectrograms he shared, audio on all four records appeared to cut off abruptly at approximately 17.5 kHz.

Then there was another problem.

His first disc reportedly produced severe scratching noises near the ends of both sides.

At first glance, those observations might sound like evidence of one bad vinyl release.

I don't think that's necessarily what the evidence tells us.

In fact, the two observations may point toward completely different stages in the process of making a record.

And understanding why provides a useful lesson for anyone trying to determine what actually went wrong with a piece of vinyl.

This Started With a Collector Making a Digital Backup

The original investigation appeared on Reddit's r/vinyl community.

The collector said he recorded the first playback of all four records as a backup at 24-bit/96 kHz. His system included a Technics SL-1200G turntable, Audio-Technica AT33Sa cartridge, Darlington Labs MP-8B phono stage, and a Tascam DA-3000 recorder.

While editing the recording of Disc 1, he noticed what appeared to be a hard cutoff at approximately 17.5 kHz.

So he kept going.

The other three records apparently exhibited it too.

He also compared portions of the vinyl transfers with audio from the film's 4K Blu-ray and included spectrograms showing the differences he observed.

That doesn't prove why the vinyl behaves this way.

But it makes the observation considerably more interesting than simply saying, “This record doesn't sound very good.”

A Record Doesn't Begin at the Pressing Plant

When we hear something wrong with a new record, it's incredibly easy to blame the pressing.

I've done it too.

Noise? Bad pressing.

Distortion? Bad pressing.

Something sounds strange? Bad pressing.

But a finished record is the result of a chain of events that begins long before PVC enters a record press.

Simplified considerably, it looks something like this:

Recording and mix → source supplied for vinyl → mastering → lacquer cutting → plating → pressing → individual record → playback system

A problem can potentially enter at almost any point.

That's important because the pattern of a problem can sometimes provide clues about where we should start looking.

The 17.5 kHz Cutoff Is the First Clue

The collector says he found approximately the same high-frequency cutoff on all four records.

That's what caught my attention.

One unusual record could point toward something specific to that record.

Four different records displaying a similar measurable characteristic suggests that we should at least investigate something they have in common.

That potentially moves the investigation farther upstream.

Could the characteristic already have existed in the source files supplied for the vinyl release?

Could processing during mastering have introduced it?

Could it have occurred somewhere in the cutting chain?

There are several possibilities.

Without access to the source files, vinyl masters, cutting chain, and production documentation, we simply don't know.

And that's an important distinction.

The spectrogram can show us what is present on the collector's transfers. It cannot, by itself, tell us who put it there.

But Is 17.5 kHz Actually a Problem?

This is where I think the story needs considerably more nuance than a graph followed by an alarming headline.

A cutoff around 17.5 kHz does not automatically mean the record sounds bad.

Many adult listeners have little or no useful hearing at those frequencies. Even for listeners who can hear that high, the musical significance of information approaching 20 kHz is very different from what happens throughout the bass, midrange, and lower treble.

Vinyl mastering isn't simply a process of putting every frequency contained in a digital file into a groove, either.

High-frequency content can present challenges during vinyl cutting, and filtering can be a legitimate mastering decision.

So I wouldn't look at a spectrogram ending around 17.5 kHz and declare:

This record is defective.

I'd ask:

Why does it happen at approximately the same place across four records?

That's a much more interesting question.

The Fourth Record Makes This Particularly Interesting

There's another wrinkle worth considering.

The first three records contain Pemberton's score.

The fourth is different.

It's a zoetrope record containing 10 needle-drops used in the film, meaning commercially released songs rather than Pemberton's original score. The advertised set therefore combines materially different musical sources inside the same package.

Yet the collector reports seeing the approximately 17.5 kHz behavior across all four discs.

If his analysis is accurate and repeatable, that's particularly useful evidence.

It makes me less interested in asking whether something happened during the recording of Pemberton's score and more interested in finding the common denominator shared by the material before it reached the finished records.

Again, that doesn't identify the cause.

It narrows the questions.

And that's what good troubleshooting should do.

The Scratching Noise May Be a Completely Different Problem

Now consider Disc 1.

The collector says both sides developed severe scratching sounds as playback approached the runout area. He also reported finding fine debris on the record after playback in the affected area and wondered whether the stylus was interacting with improperly formed grooves.

That's potentially much closer to what collectors traditionally think of as a manufacturing defect.

But even here, I wouldn't assign responsibility without examining additional copies.

The important question becomes:

How repeatable is the problem?

If one copy does it, you start with that copy and the playback system.

If numerous copies exhibit the same problem in the same location, you start looking for something common to those records.

If every record in a four-disc package shares the same measurable characteristic, you move the investigation farther upstream still.

None of those observations provides absolute proof.

They're clues.

This Is Why I Wouldn't Call Everything a “Bad Pressing”

We've previously explored the larger quality-control problem in Why Are So Many New Vinyl Pressings Defective?

That story dealt with the frustrating physical problems collectors encounter with new records: noise, warps, scratches, off-center pressings, and other manufacturing problems.

This case raises a slightly different issue.

Not everything wrong with a vinyl release necessarily originates at the pressing plant.

A pressing plant cannot restore information that isn't present in whatever source reaches the cutting stage.

Likewise, the person mastering a record cannot prevent every physical defect that might occur later when thousands of copies are manufactured, sleeved, packaged, shipped, and handled.

That's why simply calling something a “bad pressing” isn't particularly useful when we're trying to understand the cause.

It describes the customer's experience.

It doesn't necessarily identify the problem.

Your Turntable Can Complicate the Investigation Too

There's another variable collectors shouldn't overlook.

The playback system.

Suppose you hear distortion toward the inner grooves.

It could be the record.

But it could also involve cartridge alignment, stylus profile, tracking force, anti-skate, cartridge condition, or some combination of those variables.

Surface noise could be manufacturing related.

It could also be contamination.

And once we start digitizing records, we've added another chain:

cartridge → phono stage → analog-to-digital converter → recording level → digital file → analysis software

Every part matters.

That's why measurements can be incredibly useful, but they always need context.

A graph is evidence.

It isn't automatically a verdict.

Digitizing Vinyl Gives Collectors a Powerful Tool

This may actually be my favorite part of this story.

The collector wasn't conducting an academic investigation.

He was making digital backups of his records.

But once vinyl enters the digital domain, we can examine it in ways that aren't possible by simply sitting in the listening chair.

We can compare frequency spectra.

Measure levels.

Examine dynamics.

Compare channels.

Precisely align different pressings of the same recording.

Look at speed differences.

And compare what we hear with what we can measure.

I've increasingly found this useful in my own listening comparisons.

Measurements don't replace listening.

They give listening another source of information.

Sometimes they confirm exactly what you thought you heard.

Sometimes they reveal that two recordings are much closer than you expected.

And occasionally they uncover something you weren't listening for at all.

Premium Vinyl Should Come With Better Information

There's also a larger collector issue here.

The Project Hail Mary set is clearly positioned as a premium physical object. It includes three gold records, a zoetrope disc, exclusive score material, a booklet, a slipmat, and a patch. Depending on the retailer, current listings range from roughly $130 to $150.

There's nothing inherently wrong with elaborate packaging.

I like beautifully produced records.

But the more elaborate these releases become, the more I wish the industry would put the same effort into documenting how the records themselves were made.

What was the source supplied for vinyl?

Was there a dedicated vinyl master?

Who mastered it?

Who cut it?

What processing was performed before cutting?

Where was it plated?

Where was it pressed?

None of those answers automatically tells us whether a record will sound good.

A digitally sourced record can sound phenomenal.

An all-analog record can sound terrible.

But provenance gives collectors information.

And when something unusual is discovered later, that information becomes extremely valuable.

The Most Interesting Question Isn't Whether You Can Hear 17.5 kHz

I suspect discussion around this story will inevitably become:

“Can you even hear 17.5 kHz?”

Maybe you can.

Maybe you can't.

That's not the part I find most interesting.

The collector says he found approximately the same characteristic across four different records containing different material.

That's data worth investigating.

If the cutoff already existed in whatever sources were prepared for the vinyl project, the physical records could reproduce those sources perfectly and it would still appear.

If it was introduced during mastering, that's a different explanation.

If it occurred during cutting, that's another.

And if additional testing ultimately demonstrates that some element of the collector's recording or analysis methodology created the apparent limitation, that would be important information too.

That's how this should work.

Don't start with a culprit.

Follow the evidence backward.

A Vinyl Defect Is Really a Forensics Problem

Maybe that's the lesson here.

When something sounds wrong with a record, don't immediately decide what caused it.

Start eliminating variables.

Try another copy if possible.

Check the cartridge setup.

Clean the record.

Determine whether other collectors experience the same thing.

Compare another pressing or another format.

And if you have the equipment, record it.

If you're looking at measurements, ask what they actually demonstrate rather than what you want them to demonstrate.

Making a vinyl record involves a surprisingly long chain of people, machines, materials, and decisions.

By the time your stylus reaches the groove, you're hearing the result of all of them.

The pressing plant is only one link.

And sometimes the strangest thing you discover on a record may have been there long before anyone turned a puck of PVC into an LP.