"Did The Music Business Just Kill the Vinyl Revival?"

[Cyber 1]

Vertical Tracking Angle (VTA) is not as critical unless you are playing CD-4. Then the angle can cause enough mistrackiing to mess up demodulation..

Does you tables have the ability to set VTA on the fly?

 

[dobyblue]

The article makes some grossly flawed claims. Labels gave consumers a great opportunity to enjoy technological advancements with all the majors supporting SACD or DVD-A for a number of years including box sets of big artists and some of the biggest selling albums of all time being issued - consumers don’t care. The claim the labels did nothing since vinyl holds no water.

Businesses go where consumers lead them, sadly for us.

 

[MidiMagic]

Does you tables have the ability to set VTA on the fly?

No.

I have seen several changers that always play records at the same VTA because they have only one record on the turntable at a time:

Fisher Lincoln 70
Thorens TD224
Capehart turnover-changer
RCA V225 two-side changer

 

[Nyad]

No.

I have seen several changers that always play records at the same VTA because they have only one record on the turntable at a time:

Fisher Lincoln 70
Thorens TD224
Capehart turnover-changer
RCA V225 two-side changer

Now we are talking:

 

[Cyber 1]

No.

I have seen several changers that always play records at the same VTA because they have only one record on the turntable at a time:

Sorry didn't realize this had been in regards to changer tables, but anyway if you listen on a table that has on the fly VTA and have another person adjust VTA you will hear the shift in sound

 

[MidiMagic]

Sorry didn't realize this had been in regards to changer tables, but anyway if you listen on a table that has on the fly VTA and have another person adjust VTA you will hear the shift in sound

Not necessarily You need a turntable or changer with a cartridge mount that has a manual knob to adjust the VTA. My PE-2038B has this.

 

[ar surround]

On a gondola ride yesterday, a skiing / snowboarding instructor noted that most of the kids nowadays want to learn skiing rather than snowboarding even though snowboarding is the newer “thing.” He acknowledged that it was similar to vinyl being the “in” thing to own today.

 

[roundhousequad]

https://dcist.com/story/23/03/15/metallica-buys-northern-virginia-furnace-record-pressing/

 

[Quadly McQuadmeister]

I don't think the issue's that simple. Anyone who (with a straight face) asserts that record weight has no bearing on the quality of the pressing has never seen a pinch warp. Or more accurately, didn't live through the pre-1973/post-1973 Arab Oil embargo record collecting experience. Very thin vinyl sounds wretched for a variety of quantifiable reasons. Past a certain point, enormously thick (and needlessly expensive) pressings are (arguably) verging on overkill. But anybody who has collected (I have 99% of the original RCA Living Stereo LSC catalog on both digital and original Shaded Dog pressings, plus the best of the AP and Classic pressings and have actually LISTENED to them) the most outstanding recordings from the LP's heyday (I have roughly about half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog-the BEST ones-and yes, the original LP early pressing runs, PLUS the entire available catalog on digital) and in my experience, the truth is that lousy vinyl (old and NEW) is a REAL THING. Record pressing weight is just ONE of a number of parameters that matter. The relationship isn't linear to the degree where a 400-gram pressing is twice as good as a 200-gram pressing. The hardness of the vinyl (another big difference between 1960s vinyl and 1980s vinyl) makes a difference as well and is almost never discussed. Using a (GOOD) record clamp can mitigate some of those differences. The idea is to keep the record still so the stylus doesn't chase it all over Hell and half of Creation. I corresponded privately with Mr. Gioia some years ago and I think he's very well informed, although I don't always agree with what is historically turning into a conflation of the greatest "Jazz" vs. the greatest SELLING "Jazz" as a post-modern phenomenon. What musicians (or the musically astute) listen to and what folks put on to provide "auditory wallpaper" for their lifestyle ("Kind Of Blue" is doubtlessly the greatest make-out record of the 20th Century, hands down) aren't always the same thing. From another perspective, the musical and virtuosic significance of Chase's Quad recordings can punch through the limitations of an 8-track tape cartridge. Although it's not my first format of choice for critical listening, I do like having it/them for comparison purposes. The format isn't irrelevant, but it's not the critical component in the process either. My priorities are for physical media of any kind over any download, but download's if there's no other way to own the content. The reason is the music I value is sufficiently outside of the mainstream that it can be very difficult to source (in a high-fidelity download) on the Internet. (YouTube does NOT count. Quality is a complete crapshoot.) In some ways, you can (with good equipment) get far more high-fidelity presence from an 8-track or cassette than you can from a compressed/algorithm-ed download, believe that or not. Of course, that comparison is example dependent, for sure.

 

[barfle]

https://dcist.com/story/23/03/15/metallica-buys-northern-virginia-furnace-record-pressing/

I lived in that area when the plant opened. It certainly was covered by the Washington Post. But then, it seemed to disappear, so I had no idea if it was a going concern or not.

 

[Cyber 1]

I don't think the issue's that simple.

All very well said and agree 100%

 

[kap'n krunch]

I repeat, I prefer an LP to an over compressed CD, in spite of the medium's shortcomings...even though I have a secret formula to "de-LIMIT" CDs, they still sound fatiguing after the process...

 

[par4ken]

This is the one that I use.
https://www.terrywest.nl/utils.html It usually does help to restore DR but doesn't always improve the sound a whole lot, it depends on the disc. I think that brickwalling destroys much of the sound quality permanently.

 

[MidiMagic]

I don't think the issue's that simple. Anyone who (with a straight face) asserts that record weight has no bearing on the quality of the pressing has never seen a pinch warp. Or more accurately, didn't live through the pre-1973/post-1973 Arab Oil embargo record collecting experience. Very thin vinyl sounds wretched for a variety of quantifiable reasons. Past a certain point, enormously thick (and needlessly expensive) pressings are (arguably) verging on overkill. But anybody who has collected (I have 99% of the original RCA Living Stereo LSC catalog on both digital and original Shaded Dog pressings, plus the best of the AP and Classic pressings and have actually LISTENED to them) the most outstanding recordings from the LP's heyday (I have roughly about half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog-the BEST ones-and yes, the original LP early pressing runs, PLUS the entire available catalog on digital) and in my experience, the truth is that lousy vinyl (old and NEW) is a REAL THING. Record pressing weight is just ONE of a number of parameters that matter. The relationship isn't linear to the degree where a 400-gram pressing is twice as good as a 200-gram pressing. The hardness of the vinyl (another big difference between 1960s vinyl and 1980s vinyl) makes a difference as well and is almost never discussed. Using a (GOOD) record clamp can mitigate some of those differences. The idea is to keep the record still so the stylus doesn't chase it all over Hell and half of Creation. I corresponded privately with Mr. Gioia some years ago and I think he's very well informed, although I don't always agree with what is historically turning into a conflation of the greatest "Jazz" vs. the greatest SELLING "Jazz" as a post-modern phenomenon. What musicians (or the musically astute) listen to and what folks put on to provide "auditory wallpaper" for their lifestyle ("Kind Of Blue" is doubtlessly the greatest make-out record of the 20th Century, hands down) aren't always the same thing. From another perspective, the musical and virtuosic significance of Chase's Quad recordings can punch through the limitations of an 8-track tape cartridge. Although it's not my first format of choice for critical listening, I do like having it/them for comparison purposes. The format isn't irrelevant, but it's not the critical component in the process either. My priorities are for physical media of any kind over any download, but download's if there's no other way to own the content. The reason is the music I value is sufficiently outside of the mainstream that it can be very difficult to source (in a high-fidelity download) on the Internet. (YouTube does NOT count. Quality is a complete crapshoot.) In some ways, you can (with good equipment) get far more high-fidelity presence from an 8-track or cassette than you can from a compressed/algorithm-ed download, believe that or not. Of course, that comparison is example dependent, for sure.

How about some paragraphs the post was all run together too hard to read.

One time I bought a record at a garage sale with a bad warp. I wanted to use it as a test record for arm compliance. Unfortunately, I made the mistake of storing it correctly. The next time I wanted to make the test, the warp was gone.

 

[Quadly McQuadmeister]

I've explained why it happens on phone generated posts before, the parsing gets taken out, it's not because they weren't there in the first place. But since sarcasm is the coin of the realm here now, (it works so much better than relevancy!) I'll just reply "You're welcome!". No....not really....rofl...

 

[marcb]

I don't think the issue's that simple. Anyone who (with a straight face) asserts that record weight has no bearing on the quality of the pressing has never seen a pinch warp. Or more accurately, didn't live through the pre-1973/post-1973 Arab Oil embargo record collecting experience. Very thin vinyl sounds wretched for a variety of quantifiable reasons. Past a certain point, enormously thick (and needlessly expensive) pressings are (arguably) verging on overkill. But anybody who has collected (I have 99% of the original RCA Living Stereo LSC catalog on both digital and original Shaded Dog pressings, plus the best of the AP and Classic pressings and have actually LISTENED to them) the most outstanding recordings from the LP's heyday (I have roughly about half of the Mercury Living Presence catalog-the BEST ones-and yes, the original LP early pressing runs, PLUS the entire available catalog on digital) and in my experience, the truth is that lousy vinyl (old and NEW) is a REAL THING. Record pressing weight is just ONE of a number of parameters that matter. The relationship isn't linear to the degree where a 400-gram pressing is twice as good as a 200-gram pressing. The hardness of the vinyl (another big difference between 1960s vinyl and 1980s vinyl) makes a difference as well and is almost never discussed. Using a (GOOD) record clamp can mitigate some of those differences. The idea is to keep the record still so the stylus doesn't chase it all over Hell and half of Creation. I corresponded privately with Mr. Gioia some years ago and I think he's very well informed, although I don't always agree with what is historically turning into a conflation of the greatest "Jazz" vs. the greatest SELLING "Jazz" as a post-modern phenomenon. What musicians (or the musically astute) listen to and what folks put on to provide "auditory wallpaper" for their lifestyle ("Kind Of Blue" is doubtlessly the greatest make-out record of the 20th Century, hands down) aren't always the same thing. From another perspective, the musical and virtuosic significance of Chase's Quad recordings can punch through the limitations of an 8-track tape cartridge. Although it's not my first format of choice for critical listening, I do like having it/them for comparison purposes. The format isn't irrelevant, but it's not the critical component in the process either. My priorities are for physical media of any kind over any download, but download's if there's no other way to own the content. The reason is the music I value is sufficiently outside of the mainstream that it can be very difficult to source (in a high-fidelity download) on the Internet. (YouTube does NOT count. Quality is a complete crapshoot.) In some ways, you can (with good equipment) get far more high-fidelity presence from an 8-track or cassette than you can from a compressed/algorithm-ed download, believe that or not. Of course, that comparison is example dependent, for sure.

All other things equal, record weight has no bearing on the quality of a record. Period. Obviously if you were to press a 25g record or a 400g record, there would be production challenges making it impossible to make a quality record. And even at the higher point of the range today (200g), you're pushing the limits.

The best pressings (not necessarily the mastering) ever were the fairly lightweight MFSL pressings of the late 70s-mid 80s. There are plenty of examples of great lightweight vinyl pressings.

 

[Quadly McQuadmeister]

All other things equal, record weight has no bearing on the quality of a record. Period. Obviously if you were to press a 25g record or a 400g record, there would be production challenges making it impossible to make a quality record. And even at the higher point of the range today (200g), you're pushing the limits.

The best pressings (not necessarily the mastering) ever were the fairly lightweight MFSL pressings of the late 70s-mid 80s. There are plenty of examples of great lightweight vinyl pressings.

They're not, so it isn't!

 

[Quad Linda]

Let's keep the conversation civil, or the entire thread will need to be suspended.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

 

[par4ken]

While I agree that heavy vinyl can't hurt and it should be less prone to warpage that is only one factor. The quality of the vinyl would be even more important. From my experience those Dynaflex LP's from the seventies sound damn good.

All Canadian ABC/Dunhill releases starting about 1971 were pressed by RCA using Dynaflex vinyl. Those "Dynaflex" records sound much better to me than their U.S. non "Dynaflex" counterparts, they are very much quieter. A recent vinyl purchase "Leigh Ashford - Kinfolk", a U.S. "Dynaflex" copy on RCA sounds fantastic, even better than the CD, IMHO.

I forget all the details about Dynaflex other than it's lightweight but it must of had other positive attributes. I remember reading negative comments about "Dynagroove" records which I had at one time confused with "Dynaflex". Don't confuse both of those with Dynaquad!

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[marcb]

While I agree that heavy vinyl can't hurt and it should be less prone to warpage that is only one factor. The quality of the vinyl would be even more important. From my experience those Dynaflex LP's from the seventies sound damn good.

All Canadian ABC/Dunhill releases starting about 1971 were pressed by RCA using Dynaflex vinyl. Those "Dynaflex" records sound much better to me than the U.S. non "Dynaflex" counterparts, they are very much quieter. A recent vinyl purchase "Leigh Ashford - Kinfolk", a U.S. "Dynaflex" copy on RCA sounds fantastic, even better than the CD, IMHO.

I forget all the details about Dynaflex other than it's lightweight but it must of had other positive attributes. I remember reading negative comments about "Dynagroove" records which I had at one time confused with "Dynaflex". Don't confuse both of those with Dynaquad!

​

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Exactly. Dynaflex pressings - which were extremely lightweight - were generally pretty good but got confused with Dynagroove - which generally weren’t. Well that…and confirmation bias.

And Classic Records (among others) had QC issues with 200g records. But bottom line, there is no inherent sound quality or QC benefit with heavier records. It’s all just marketing - and improving margins by getting people to pay $$ more for a few $0.01 of extra vinyl.