Received my Meteor backglass today. It's obvious that significant care and work went into the reproduction. I am very pleased with the mirroring and it's nice to have a backglass without the flakes and holes of my original, and I look forward to restoring my game in a way that will ensure durability for a long long time. I paid what I feel is a fair price for the reproduction, however, for purists, the backglass is not without flaws.
First of all, the masking and mirroring is perfect and crisp. Excellent work. Here is an image showing the reverse side of the new glass:
Reproduction reverse
Below are images comparing the old and new glasses. These are taken with an iPhone 7+ rear camera under similar lighting conditions. I have tried to be as charitable as possible but keep in mind that the settings are not laboratory controlled and I'm not a photographer.
The black, white, and mirroring definitions are very crisp.
Original:
Original
Reproduction:
Reproduction
The reproduction is missing the word CREDIT in the credit display window.
Original:
Original
Reproduction:
Reproduction
The light sky blue does not appear to be a perfect match for the original hue, although it is beautiful and vibrant.
Original:
Original
Reproduction:
Reproduction
The colour printing is not solid colour screen-printed inks, rather, it uses a dithering process to achieve halftones, like a computer printer. This is a side effect of the printing technique, as these reproductions are not screen-rinted. It is noticeable when you put your nose to the glass, and it will upset people who are expecting a perfect reproduction of the original. From any sort of distance it is not noticeable. Although the black and white sections are crisp, the colour sections are not, and tend to fade softly between colour transitions. From a distance it is not very noticeable, however, when processing the artwork from scans the colour sections should have been vectorized and cleaned up better.
Original:
Original
Reproduction:
Reproduction
There is another difference which a purist will find glaring. The white cloud below the ball display window is missing from the CPR reproduction. I am uncertain if this could be attributed to different versions of the original, however, it does appear to be an error.
Original:
Original
Reproduction:
Reproduction
In conclusion, I am pleased with my purchase and this backglass is in much better shape than my original. This will make my game look so much better.
If you are looking for a 100% faithful reproduction of the original, CPR has not achieved that in this current batch. For a future "Gold" run, they should correct the missing credit text and cloud as well as improving the definition and transition from one colour to another. The dithering is an unavoidable side effect of the current printing method, but the other issues could be resolved with additional care.
I hope that people including the folks at CPR will find this review fair. CPR has done a very good job creating a reproduction that will meet the needs of most people, and will immensely improve the look and feel of many aging machines, but someone looking for a 100% perfect glass should continue looking for it on the old-stock market as this product does have flaws that will, well, bother the kinds of people bothered by this kind of thing. I hope this review helps you too.
Added over 5 years ago:
Updating this post as it is incomplete: I need to add some additional information, now that I've had some time to sit down and work on my Meteor. The dark green layer artwork of the original glass was misinterpreted as a dark navy blue. The green layer is the entire body of the main asteroid between the mirrored dots as well as the shading on the rockets, as well as some of the explosion. If you only ever light your glass from the front you may not notice, but when mounted on an illuminated backbox the difference is quite striking.
I have added a post later in this thread showing the differences: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/new-backglasses-added-at-cpr/page/3#post-4954736
Others have also noticed this discrepancy and have posted photos; it is not isolated to one glass. That thread is here: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tz-and-meteor-cpr-before-after