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Oh no, there's metal in your records!

IMO, this is completely out of left field. But, here’s the story. On Saturday, there was a "seminar" at the local stereo shop about why you should listen to high quality records. It turned out to be a 3 hour commercial for this dude who wants to market his services as a "HQ record shopper" of sorts. For a mere $240, you get an annual subscription to his services. You pick a title, and he will find the "best available" version of the record... so you can buy it. And, when he brings it to you, he’ll bring other similar records for you to buy. Most of these records are in the $50 to $100 range, so this "service" clearly not for me. Plus, I kind of like the hunt for a gem.

Anyway, the point of the post: One thing he said is that some older vinyl has metallic content embedded in the vinyl, and that it can interact with your cartridge’s magnet, causing distortion. Therefore, you should only buy the newest, most pristine (hence most expensive) vinyl records... from him, of course. I didn’t want to challenge him on the spot in front of others, but in my mind I’m thinking this is the most ridiculous claim I’ve ever heard. Even more ridiculous than gems you place on your speakers to change the way they sound... but, I digress. I understand he wants to show the true value of his "service"... but, seriously? Interesting business idea... but metal in the vinyl?

Just for fun, I did a little bit of google searching for metal in vinyl, and I found links to Metallica and Whitesnake records, but no stories about the metal embedded in the vinyl. So, can you prove me wrong, or just remind me that I’m not all that gullible. Please! Anyone have any information about such a wild claim?
128x128soundermn
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chakster's avatar
chakster
6,144 posts
 
Have you heard about acetate (lacquer disc) ?
There is a metal covered by lacquer, can be 7 inch, 10 inch or even 12 inch. Master disc is the almost the same. But everyone can order an acetate for personal use, just one-off. Good for producers to cut your own music on "vinyl" (aka lacquer disc) to try or to make sure about mastering/mixing. This is the only metal disc that i know. It is not vinyl and wear factor is quicker than actuall pressing, but you can make one-off for about $30.

Watch this Lacquer Cutting Lathe   https://youtu.be/60LEmBXFpZI 


soundermn's avatar
soundermn OP
344 posts
 
@chakster Right... but this is a very rare thing, and you’d have to seek it out. He was talking about your typical run of the mill vinyl.

@jmcgrogan2 I know what you mean! But, because it’s vinyl, that’s desirable distortion. :^)
ghosthouse's avatar
ghosthouse
4,307 posts
 
Hmm...does this make the case for demagnetizing vinyl?

whart's avatar
whart
3,039 posts
 
I don’t know about metal, but as almost anyone who has handled LPs knows, they are prone to static charges. Thus, the use of additives, such as carbon black, which served several purposes, one of which was to make the record more conductive, to lessen the potential charge. ( I know that sounds counter-intuitive, but I can pull some old AES papers I read a few years ago about the subject).
This was a factor in Classic Records’ choice to go for their Clarity vinyl toward the end of their business life; the theory being, the conductive aspects of the vinyl led to all sorts of sonic anomalies.(I do have a few of those records, including a promo set of Aqualung that was released in both conventional (carbon) black and Clarity (translucent) to demonstrate the sonic differences. (My take was that the difference was relatively minor- the far bigger issue for Classic, as most of you know, was QC, non-fill and stitching when he went to the 200 gram flat profile). 
As to demagnetizing records, I experimented with it using Lloyd Walker’s handheld bar- I forget the product name. In the same way you could hear very slight differences with some things, it was possible I was hearing an improvement. I quit using for two reasons- I’m lazy, and I also didn’t like the idea of getting a magnetic field anywhere near my phono cartridge.

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