Short, but some interesting facts re staff numbers and production. GZ have rightly taken some flack over the years for the quality of their finished product although I've never personally had to return one. The Stones mono box for instance is very good. They are aware of the criticism and have made efforts to up their game.
In the end though many of the problems with the finished product come back to the choices made by the artist and record company.


www.bbc.com/news/business-41747615

in my experience gz is right up there with the very worse pressing plants like rainbo and united record pressing in the us.

almost every recent warners eu record has been pressed at gz and i've lost count of my returns - every single lana del rey album, the fleetwood mac rumours anniversary set.
usually multi-disc sets that are a bugger to replace - shops usually want the entire set returned.

the recently acquired us gz is rubbish too - they press a lot of stuff for mondo, and it's rare to get an unblemished record from them.

yes, i agree with your last comment, pressure from record companies et al to get finished product out invariably takes it toll on quality.

you can bet none of the major labels go to the expense of say qrp in record manufacture.

Seems you have far worse luck that myself with GZ Michael. I cant remember any that I've had to return where I can point the finger at them. From memory in the last couple of years all my returns have been for US pressed vinyl.
If I have one complaint about GZ it's with the amount of debris, dust, paper etc, that gets into the inner sleeve, although even there I have noticed an improvement in vinyl releasedthe last year or so. A few years back I purchased the 9xlp Deep Purple Live in Japan box set and all the albums had what looked like stains on the playing surface although the lps were flat and played perfectly. I was set to return to Amazon UK but after contact with a couple of UK based members on another forum it seemed like all the sets were like that and in the end if playback quality is good I'm happy.
There is a member of the GZ staff who posts on the Steve Hoffman forums and as he's explained many times all the plant can do is offer the various alternatives re inner sleeves, dehorning mothers etc but in the end it's the client who makes the final decision.
I'm not defending shoddy practices but all too often there's a slew of incorrect information passed on as the truth. For instance the myth that GZ can't do analog as they have no tape machines when in fact they have Telefunken M15A, Telefunken M15,and  Studer A820.

A few comments on a recent post may be of some interest

xcqn said: ↑
You work at the company, yes? I have a couple of questions...
How many records per year would you say are being cut straight from tapes without any digital involment? All-analog so to say?
Does it even happen at all?
Yes, it happens from time to time. There were years without any all analog cutting, but it is very slowly changing. It is no secret about all analog cutting as I often discuss this topic during our factory tours with our customers and visitors (bands, etc.). I have no exact statistic here, but rough estimate is around 10-20 titles this year with similar numbers for the previous year. The number of digitized analogue tapes (cheaper and easier way for both sides) may be up to 50. You can see it is hardly 0.1 % of our cutting. Of course, not counting in many externally supplied lacquers or mothers produced from lacquers cut by the all analogue way. We have no information about audio sources and ways of cutting for records pressed from externally supplied metal parts or lacquers. I know that the fully analogue cutting is a preffered way against many of audiophiles and vinyl record lovers, but there would be no vinyl revival without cutting from digital sources and many studios and plants cannot afford to buy expensive equipment to do all the mastering and lacquer cutting in the best possible but the most complicated way.

xcqn said: ↑
How often do GZ get pre-mastered digital 44.1/16 to cut from?
I beleive in transparancy, that consumers should be allowed to ask questions like these and get proper answers.
Again, we have no statistics and details of a particular title may be confidential. Some engineers do jobs for particular customers more than for others so it has no relevant value to ask him or her about his/her experience. And also we have a lot of brokers supplying great variety of source formats and resolutions which prevents from saying this customers supplies only 44.1/16 and the others only hi-res files. Sometimes I can see a note in the tracklisting form mentioning "Premastered for vinyl" or "Vinyl master" even for 16/44.1 audio sources. But yes, sometimes we have to work with heavily limited audio sources (pop genre typically, sometimes modern rock or metal). Then we have to reduce cutting levels, make some "technological corrections" not to burn the cutting head and/or break the cutting stylus and pray that the sound of records will be acceptable for most buyers. I claimed one heavily limited (digitally remastered!! with DR3-DR5) audio source of famous Czech band twice this August and still have no response from the label. Last info known to me was that they were trying to find the original 1992 audio masters in their archive.
Jiri Zita
Premastering engineer
GZ Vinyl / GZ Digital Media
Lodenice (CZ)