12" 45 RPM records: What's the story?

to minimize pre-echo

Eldartford,

I always wondered about that....I used to think it was the fault of the master tapes and how the magnetic field transfered slightly to the adjacent tape above and below, as stored on the reel...

But your descripton of vinyl pre-echo makes a lot of sense too, after all, stamping a relatively elastic piece of plastic with squiggles is sure to leave stress patterns everywhere and some leakage of squiggles between adjacent grooves once the stamp is removed...furthermore, other effects, like plastic expansion/contraction/curing may play a role as the ridges between the grooves will all be of differing thickness and therefore behave differently under stress from thermal effects.

interesting...

Shadorne...Pre-echo is a well known fault of LPs, and, to the best of my knowledge, comes about when the master is cut, not when copies are pressed. Mag tape "print through" comes about when reels are stored for a long time (years). I personally have never heard a print through problem, but just about every LP exhibits pre-echo.

Pre-echo is a well known fault of LPs, and, to the best of my knowledge, comes about when the master is cut, not when copies are pressed.

Eldartford,

Do you mean it is only at the beginning....or throughout the whole LP??

If you have echo going on throughout the LP (coming from the master or otherwise), I can't imagine how badly that would affect the noise foor (if it happens throughout). imean sometimes it was plainly audible even at low volume levels. What an awful thought... could this be why I preferred the 45's so much and found they had more clarity? (the 45's were insanely expensive compared to buying LP's with 8 or 9 tracks....often the 45 B side was garbage)

Pre-echo is evident throughout the record, if there is a loud passage preceeded by a soft passage. I must also say that I have one cd with pre-echo, but it is a reissue with remastering, so it could be magnetic transfer.

I view pre-echo as one of the liabilities of vinyl like pops and clicks or noisy vinyl on 70s records.

Pre-echo is evident throughout the record, if there is a loud passage preceeded by a soft passage.

I see, so you only hear it clearly when there is a loud passage preceeded by a soft passage...but does that mean it doesn't matter except in these instances?