Heavy Vinyl

quote:

Originally posted by jasons:
Milling about on ebay i noticed some vinyl Lp's were pressed in 180gm heavy vinyl.

Is this really an improvemnt over standard release vinyl?

Not really.

Thought so.

And i think i believe you more, being the ultimate vinyl junky.

Depends what music is on it - if it is Phil Collins on 180g vinyl or Charlie Drake on 50g vinyl then I'm for listening to 'My Boomerang Won't Come Back' on the lighter stuff.

BTW in one of my Half Man, Half Biscuit albums it has a catalogue of other intertesting albums among which is Charlie Drake Sings the Songs of Nick Drake, but I've never seen it the shops.

The heavier the vinyl, the less prone to warping.

Steve

Even shellac, which is heavier than any vinyl, is capable of warping. It is just a question of storage and handling!

Fredrik

PS: For any shellac junkies out there, shellac can go rotten if is kept in damp conditions.

quote:

Originally posted by Yo-yo Master:
The heavier the vinyl, the less prone to warping.

An ARO doesn't seem to care, tho.

quote:

Originally posted by jasons:
Thought so.

And i think i believe you more, being the ultimate vinyl junky.

Jason,

Get this on vinyl.

Michael Mcdonald: Motown
All photos by my friend Michael Wilson.

quote:

Originally posted by Fredrik_Fiske:
Even shellac, which is heavier than any vinyl, is capable of warping. It is just a question of storage and handling!

Fredrik

PS: For any shellac junkies out there, shellac can go rotten if is kept in damp conditions.

Fredrik

I didn't say immune to warping, I said less prone to warping. I buy a lot of LPs via mail order, and once in a while some of the standard thickness ones arrive warped, whereas none of the heavy ones (150g and upwards) have ever arrived warped. That's not to say it will never happen, just that it's less likely to happen.

Steve

180 gram vinyl is only part of the story...

A while back I bought some 180g LPs in the HMV sale, 'simply vinyl' remasters, looked plush, clear plastic storage sleeve included etc, £1.99 each. I put the Simple Minds 'Once upon a time' on the Linn, played it through and found it boring as heck.

I assumed, that not having heard the LP for a number of years, that it was true to life and Kerr and Co were like that (just as everyone says )... until I dug out my mid-80s original on ye olde Virgin flimsye pressing, which promptly nailed the newcomer to the wall with its dynamics, boppy tunes and general great sound. It made the 180g pressing sound like a Dido CD.

I don't know what they cut the new LP with but it's not as good as the original tape fresh out of the studio 20 years ago, so I remain suspicious of oldies re-issues, although I am happy to buy new releases in the chunky format.

Anyone else experienced this?

In my limited understanding a heavy pressing is a sign that one of many quality variables has been attended to during duplication. As for taste, artistic mileage may vary.

Vinyl will only warp if hot and heavy vinyl will be slower to cool hence actually more prone to warping if the pressing process is run too fast. The classic double bump per revolution is unlikely to be some form of column buckling as the circumference of the disc is not under tension – an over eager pair of hands withdrawing too-warm vinyl from a press perhaps? Perhaps the reason vinyl got lighter was not to reduce material costs but to increase production yield.

I could be wrong. I was once. <Ahem>

C

Hello,

A 180 gram (or 200 gram) vinyl LP is not necessarily better simply because it is heavier. On the other hand some original LPs were not done well to begin with. Some recent 180 gram re-issues are done right. Some titles are just too difficult to find or too expensive to find in their original form so I go with re-issues in these cases. I bought the CA Quintet's A Trip Through Hell re-issue from Sundazed Records for these reasons.

I read reviews of re-issues prior to buying them. Sometimes the re-issue is said to be no better or even lacking compared to the original and then in other cases they might find the original to be an improvement. I don't usually buy common LPs in 180 gram re-issue form, Fleetwood Mac's Rumours for example. LPs like that one are beautifully recorded, cheap, and plentiful in their original form. There is no reason to shell out big money for that type of re-issue unless you just want a new, shrink wrapped copy.

Just my opinion.

Scott

Lots of interesting comments here.

However, was it not the case that 'heavy vinyl' was produced from proper 'raw' materials (or, if i recall, as being refereed to as 'virgin' vinyl), as i believe new vinyl today is made from recycled materials?

Of course, i could be talking a load of crap, in which case just tell me to 'go away'.

Surely the only way to tell is if you have a think and thick copy of the same record - the only one I have this with is Tangerine Dream's Atem (not sure why I have two copies). They both sound the same to me, but that is not to say that would always be the case.

I agree heavy vinyl records don't necessarily sound better, and it seems that they are actually more likely to warp. Heavy vinyl must be an evil marketing ploy, just like mothers day.

Steve

My friend and I once carried out a liitle experiment. We had four copies of LED ZEP II - CD, brand new 200gm Quiex vinyl, an 80's flexy disc pressing and my utterly buggered 70's copy (mid weight) And the winner was....... the 200gm copy, but only by a very slim margin over the.......utterly buggered 70's copy. Had my copy been better preserved, it would have been a draw. The CD and 80's copy were both feeble in equal measures, mastering me thinks. The Quiex copy cost £27, mine £1.90 in 1984!

I would never buy a re-issue of anything unless it was impossible to find. I think there is to much compresion & radio mixing going on these days & I'm concerned you would not get the original mix. Always better to but the original in good condition if you can.

Having said that, I'm still buying contemporary artists & albums on vinyl and I think they sound better than the CD counterparts.

Wolfmother for instance is superb.

quote:

Originally posted by ROTF:
Surely the only way to tell is if you have a think and thick copy of the same record - the only one I have this with is Tangerine Dream's Atem (not sure why I have two copies). They both sound the same to me, but that is not to say that would always be the case.

Funnily enough I also have 2 copies of Atem - one on Ohr and one on Virgin. The Ohr copy is thicker but I don't play it as much as the Virgin copy because it doesn't sound as good - surface noise not characteristics of the vinyl. I think, if you can ignore the surface noise, which isn't easy, they both sound the same. Actually I haven't played either for ages until I read ROTF's posting and played them side by side. Thanks for that - I had forgotten what a great record it is