The Color Of Vinyl

I can say that I have seen impurities inside clear vinyl records, and doubt the better quality theory. I have never owned the same record in two different colors, so I won't try to offer any observations about alsolute sound quality. Since a choice usually isn't available for any given record outside of collector's limited issues, which are presumably bought for reasons other than their sound, this probably won't matter much in the real world anyway. Two thing I can say though: it's only with black records that you can really *see* the surface conditions and whether or not you've cleaned the thing well, and the same goes for your ability to accurately cue the lead-in and between-track silent grooves (clear and translucent records being the worst for this). Given a choice, give me black.

Some time ago I had a couple of conversations with the people at RTI and also a separate convo with Stan Rick about colored vinyl.

As far as the "picture discs" go, I regret that I cannot recall the specifics, but they are [relatively] crap.

Now, as far as colored vinyl goes, there are different combinations with slightly different *potential* sonic issues. For today's (and almost all past) LPs, there is some carbon black which is part of the mix, and compared to vinyl which uses only dye to attain its black or near-black appearance--like the JVC Supervinyl--there is apparently a very slightly higher degree of noise. Slightly more noise can come from albums which use a type of oxide (I *think* its titanium dioxide, but I'm not sure -- in any event it's a commonly used whitening substance in various industries, if that's not the correct compound) as the whitener. This would be used for all-white vinyl LPs of course, but is also used when you want to have opaque colors rather than 'clear' colors. If you just use red or purple or whatever dye, you will have a [somewhat] clear red, clear purple, clear whatever LP. Adding some whitening agent makes it look flat/opaque, kind of like you would think of a crayon color.

So anyway, the dye-only LPs (like JVC) are quietest, followed by regular black LPs (from the carbon black) and then by LPs using the whitening stuff (titanium dioxide..??), with ALL OTHER THINGS BEING EQUAL!

Mike

Mike, that is a good summary of the varying parameters for making vinyl discs. I used to run a vinyl compounding plant that produced (or at least tried) vinyl for records, among other products such as cable jackets. The common "brightener" is titanium dioxide and the common "blackner" is carbon black, the quality (mostly size of particles, which can vary greatly) of these being the main contributor to the noise qualities of the discs. The dyes can also contripute if the pigments in the dye are of poor quality.

It is very difficult to discern whether a vinyl is virgin or not through visual or tactile observation, much like a woman I guess.

TWL, it appears that I might have more intimate knowledge of vinyl than you suspected - love the smell!

Bob P.

According to my studies at the Institute Of Audio Research back in 1975 where I actually cut some disc using a Scully Lathe there are some sonic differences using different color dyes. Might have to look up my notes or Journals of the Audio Engineering Society.

not "Stan Rick" as in my post. ...Bad typo!

I also forgot to mention that the folks at RTI stressed that the differences in noise level that we were talking about when it came to carbon black, TiO2, dyes, etc. , were pretty small.

Mike