Heavy Vinyl

"have to find that one"

Killer Dylan cover-Highway 61 Revisited

I have a decent collection of early pressings of albums from the 1960’s to the 80’s and would estimate less than 1% are warped. But I have also come across very few 180 gram that are warped.

As far as sound quality I believe most of my older pressings sound either superior or equally as good as replacements I have purchased thar are 180 gram. I will say that there are a number of remasters on 180 gram that do sound fantastic.

sound quality has a lot to do with who the mastering engineer was and who cut the laquers and plates and where the albums are pressed.

i agree with the statement that I have come across many more new pressings with ticks regardless of LP weight than I have on the older pre 1990 pressings.

I have a number of 180g recordings and can't recall any warped ones. Audiophile recordings are for a tough crowd and perhaps more care is taken in their manufacturing. OTOH, most folks my age (nearing 70) will have less than fond memories of making additional trips to the record store to return hopelessly warped commercial recordings during the 1970s (when vinyl got cheaper and thinner). 

IMHO the weight of the vinyl has pretty much zero to do with the sound. I have some great sounding albums from the 70's that flex like crazy. The sound is going to be affected by a host of other things, one of which is who mastered the music in the first place. If it was a lousy recording to start with, having it on heavier vinyl or even remastered, won't fix it. Specifically, I am thinking the first Chicago album (CTA), and Carol King's Tapestry - two of my fav albums (you can tell I am an old fart) but IMHO kinda muddy sound, even the remastered versions. And then released around the same time, BS&T 2 - incredible sound and music. My best sounding albums have one of the following guys (all guys) as the mastering engineer - they are normally listed in the fine print on the back of the album or in the liner notes somewhere: - Bernie Grundman; Stan Ricker; Kevin Gray; Steve Hoffman; Roy Halee; Bill Schnee; Doug Sax; George Marino; Todd Wunderlich (MoFi). I am sure there are others, but if I see one of these names, then I know it will be great sounding record. Also the label - Analogue Productions - IMHO - seems to do the best job of re-issues and re-masters. MoFi is also good, notwithstanding their lawsuit and marketing. There are other labels that are defunct that produced some great sounding music - you can find them on Discogs - Umbrella, from Canada; Crystal Clear Records, M&K Real-time; Recut Records (Sweden) - again, a short list from my old memory.

YMMV of course.

cleeds

5,366 posts

10-11-2023 at 08:35am 

I haven’t found heavy vinyl to be more susceptible to warps at all. In fact, the most warped records that I can recall were the old RCA Dynaflex LPs, and they were incredibly thin.

Boy I remember those. They were beyond awful!