2. analog
  3. 1247092305

New vinyl's noisy little secret

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the current crop of vinyl formulations just have higher noise levels than LPs made years ago. A case in point--I stumbled upon an old, original copy of Henry Mancini's 1962 soundtrack to the movie "Hatari" in my collection a few days ago (I had never even played it), and was astonished at its deathly quiet playback. Simply no surface noise. What gives? OK, you may make fun of this black-label RCA pressing (LSP-2559) for its content musically (though it's actually pretty fun), but it sure reminded me what we are missing with new releases--super high quality vinyl with very low surface noise. Even the occasional mechanical clicks from scratches seemed subdued. Most of my (expensive!) new vinyl comes replete with very onerous surface noise. Is it just impossible to make this old-generation type of vinyl currently?
kipdent
ducatirider
111 posts
 
There are many new recording with bad quality as well. How many of you have a clean copy of Pop Pop or Just a Little Lovin?
stevecham
3,340 posts
 
It's the quality of the vinyl used today, virgin is evermore expensive and ever harder to source. Plus, I think they should leave the pressing longer in the stamper to allow the poorer quality vinyl a chance to flow longer.
kipdent OP
65 posts
 
Ducatirider wrote:

"How many of you have a clean copy of Pop Pop or Just a Little Lovin? "

Exactly! I always thought the name "Pop Pop" was a little more than ironic. Terrible pressing.
zenblaster
504 posts
 
Thank you Axel for the great explanation. I found out about 78 rpm metallic masters from the NY Times article this past Sunday. Paramount Records in Wis. evidentley used these back in the 20's and 30's for their Blues artists. They have never found these original metal masters, some saying they were melted down for the war effort, others thinking disgruntled workers threw them into an adjascent river after the factories closing (divers have even scoured the bottom of the riverbed looking for them)
Check out the article (there is a link posted on the music threads)
axelwahl
788 posts
 
:-) Zenblaster
that's funny and sad at once.
I was NEVER aware that direct(was it?)-metal-mastering was already done in the 20s - 30s!

In fact, I have no real knowledge of the actual process. All I understand is, that in place of a lacquer (cut with a diamond) a metal disc is cut from which then the stampers (I guess!) would be 'pulled'.
This cuts down a couple of steps from the normal process. But that cutter (of the cutting lathe) will have some tough job, and I guess plenty more diamonds will be used.
In fact, that disk would have to be non-ferrous (some alu-alloy mix I guess) since one can not use diamonds cutting ferrous metals.

Cheers,
Axel
More to discover