System Of A Down – Toxicity

This is one of the very few MRP-pressed records in my collection without major quality problems. Unfortunately, getting a good record from them, in my experience, is a fluke. But I lucked out on this one aside from it being pressed ever-so-slightly off-center. Not perfect and certainly not a high fidelity release but this is a winner as far as MRP is concerned.

I have waited way too long to get this album on vinyl primarily due to all the negative reviews (from other listings of this record - they all are most likely using the same source file). I finally bought this as I really wanted to have a physical copy of the record.

This is not an audiophile record and to be honest I don’t know that many bands from early 2000 aiming for that kind of sonic quality. However, this is better than what’s on Spotify/Qobuz sonically:

1. I always thought the record sounded a bit mono due to lack of separation and squashed dynamics on most digital formats. The mastering for vinyl, although done from a digital source, was done to give the songs more room to breathe. Soundstage is wide enough to make it an enjoyable listen.

2. I was actually impressed how the bass and drums didn’t sound muddy or buried in the mix and they both had decent punch and clarity. You can listen to Rick Ruben produced albums from this era (example: RATM - Renegades or any Linkin Park records) and the first thing you will notice is how the drum crashes and hihat sounds brittle, loud and harsh. This was not the case with this record.This to me was the biggest surprise.

3. I read quite a few reviews on how a lot of music is cramped into one disc. To be fair, this is a 43 min record. Ideally you would want 15 min each side but ~ 21 min on each side is not the worst case scenario. I have records with almost 28 mins on one side (Master of Puppets Side B and a lot of Miles Davis’s experimental era records). In short, the grooves were not close enough to cause inner groove distortion for me. I have a microline stylus so that helps.

4. Cover artwork is pixelated as others have mentioned. I am guessing the artwork was meant for CD cases so it was never designed with a large format’s cover in mind. Might be wrong on that one.

I have heard the original US pressing sounds very dynamic but the natural, acceptable dynamic sounding record you get for 1/5th the price, I have no desire to seek out the original. I am happy this is now in my collection.

Very nice mastering job, the drums especially have an incredible tower to them. The pressing is also excellent with barely any surface noise

Sounds really good, a lot of depth to it. Lows hit nicely, bass is very present, as it should be with System.
Only issue is the packaging. I've actually bought two of these (because I'm an idiot and fumbled the first one, dropped it and gouged it.) And on both of them, the inner slip cover was so ridiculously tight on the record, I had to actually rip the slip cover a good few inches just go get the record out, because it actually got stuck.
So, if you buy this one, have softer, anti-static sleeves handy, because you will NOT want to put this back in the inner sleeve it comes in.

My copy said “made in Czech Republic”, so is there a new European pressing?

For the price vs quality, this gets 5 stars.
1. Pressing is perfect, low surface noise, clean vinyl, no unwanted manufacturing leftovers, no pops or scratches.
2. Digital or analog master? No idea, but whatever the source it translates extremely well to this pressing here. Compared the digital version to this and I am in love with this vinyl production.

This is what a quality pressing should be.

You really have to turn this one up, but once you do, you're met with a great pressing. Very punchy, very dynamic and suitably loud