What's with all the new colored vinyl?


I'm comfortable with traditional things; they're usually the way they are for a good reason. Underwear should be white and vinyl should be black. I have to say I am not a fan of all the new colored records, especially clear and the color-splashed ones. I find them distracting and its hard to see dust and contaminants from my old eyes. Are the any advantages to them, besides marketing them as "rare editions" , that I am missing?

aewarren
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The main concern for most of the companies that sell records is how many they sell, definitely not sound quality, except for some small labels. If coloring the vinyl sells more copies, they’ll color the vinyl.

Wouldn't it be nice if every band on a record side were a different color so we'd better know where to cue up the needle? Or how 'bout if the vinyl between cuts were a contrasting color to the rest of the side?

 

All in all, though, let a thousand colors bloom! It's the music and the quality of the vinyl/pressing that counts,

I was not talking about young people's music or picture disks. I mainly listen to and collect adult music (Jazz and some Classical and Blues) and I stopped buying used records years ago. It's too much of a crapshoot. They're mostly visually graded and one person's Mint Minus is another's VG, and you never know how they've been cleaned (or with what) or treated.  I've found many reproductions from Impex, Tone Poet, Mo-Fi, Analog Productions, Craft and others to be superior to the best originals and way less expensive. I just see no reason for them to color the vinyl except maybe to differentiate it from the original.

The colored PVC craze/fad strikes me as a childish/girlie kinda thing. But some LP’s are available only that way, so if you want the music on LP you have to accept it. Some colored LP’s are noisy, but that’s not because of the color, but rather the low standards of the pressing plant(s).

The one exception is the "super vinyl" being used by Analogue Productions and MoFi in their premium pressings. It is a new carbon-free PVC, Analogue productions using Clarity brand PVC, MoFi their own version of same. The lack of color (the LP’s look like translucent skim milk) makes seeing the LP surface and any dust difficult, but has the potential to produce a very low-noise LP. But again, doesn’t guarantee it; some of the early AP pressings of their recent Kind Of Blue suffered from excess noise. AP replaced all bought noisy copies with later, quiet pressings.

MoFi did a very limited pressing (only 1,000 copies) of Dylan’s Desire on Super Vinyl, and owners (not I, unfortunately ;-) report it sounds considerably better than original Columbia pressings. Is that because of the carbon-free PVC, the MoFi mastering/plating/pressing, or both?

@aewarren: Have you tried any of the Speaker’s Corner LP’s? SC is a German company, and I have about a half dozen of their excellent LP’s. They offer titles in all genres, from Classical to Blues. One of my favorite audiophile reissue labels.