DJ's and their quality vinyl.

I'm spinning a 12" single from 1991 right now. It's Digital Underground's "Kiss You Back" if you must know.

Physically, it's beat to ****. Sonically, it plays about as good as the average new LP i've bought in the last 2 years. There are some definite scratches on this thing, but it plays quiet. There is the occasional piece of surface noise but one of the tracks is an a cappella and it's 99% dead quiet.

Not only does it have scratches, it was most likely used by a DJ, in fact, there is a DJ's name on the label. So it wasn't babied.


This is not a unique case. 9/10 vinyl that I buy that was "DJ material" plays wonderfully. Yet when I go to play my D'Angelo reissue...pops everywhere!

 

I assume you're not talking about the Light In The Attic D'Angelo reissue because that one's really nice.

I've never really thought about it but I did just recently pick up a Deee-Lite single that looked like it had been sanded with sandpaper. And yet it played surprisingly well.

I also have a roughed-up copy of D'Angelo's "Brown Sugar" single and it sounds surprisingly good as well.

I never noticed a trend but maybe you're on to something here.

 

I've got a lot of old DJ vinyl as well in every imaginable condition and save the rare record, they play well and mostly very well. Even my "pancaked" I Am the DJ record on Michbal records plays good.

 

It's the 12" format, especially those cut at 45rpm and intended to be played by deejays on big systems that is the secret, a 12" Reggae, Hip Hop or Dance single can generally take a lot of wear and light damage without any obvious audible signs being heard. Think about it this way with an album you may have five or six tracks crammed into the same space that one song occupies on the 12" single so not only would an identically sized scratch effect much more playing time on the album, but also have much more impact on the densely packed grooves, basically 12"s are much more damage resistant, they are also generally cut louder which also helps, 99 times out of 100 a 12" cut will be the best sounding vinyl version you can get of a song.

 

It's true. I always think 12" will become the next area of interest with collectors but it never materializes. I always pick up the 12" for funk/r&b and hip hop when I see them cheap. Which is often. They sound good and keep on playing when a 331/3 LP would long since have given up the ghost.

I don't understand why 45s have such a big audience but 12" singles are ignored. Probably has something to do w the genres.

 

+1 on the funk 12" singles!

 

I agree: it being cut at a much higher level probably helps the most IMHO.

 

I picked up about a dozen UK 45 12 in. singles...or, should I say EP's cause all have 3 or 4 songs. Most are R.E.M. with the hit on one side and two rare live or unreleased tracks on the flip. They sound so great and are in mint shape. I was just going to flip them but am keeping a few that I like...The One I Love being a favorite.

 

I have a lot of ex-DJ vinyl, but mainly that's because I'm an ex-DJ; and the reason that my vinyl still sounds good is because I looked after it. And that goes for 7" and 12" singles plus LPs.

There have been a few casualties, however, mainly arising from cueing up plus a couple of styrene singles that needed a better cartridge and stylus than the ceramic item that I used in the early pre-Stanton 500 days.

 

Beware of cue burn on used dj vinyl. That's when the dj used the wrong type of needle when running the intro backwards through the needle in order to cue it up. Totally trashes it.

 

That's probably more of a radio DJ thing than a club DJ thing, but I agree that cue burn is not pleasant.

 

Yep. I collected hundreds + hundreds of 12" singles acquired back in the early days of the format - all pristine originals - that sound amazing.

 

Was just browsing for info on this. Lucky day.

When you say, "wrong type of needle", is that relative to the make/model of the turntable (using a stock needle versus a higher-end model, etc.)? I'm a total novice with mixing vinyl and am kinda worried about scratching up my good records with cues...

 

Elliptical vs. Spherical »

To over simplify, think of it this way. If the tip of your needle is round, then it contacts the grooves the same way whether the record is going backwards or forward. If the tip of your needle is a triangle, then going forward the groove is contacted with the small end of the needle going through first and the two back corners going through second. When you reverse the vinyl manually, going backward (scratching), the groove now gets contacted with the two corners of the triangle first and this is what gouges the record and causes the cue burn. Cue burn is permanent and sounds like crap until you get to the part of the song where you didn't damage it.

 

While I've experienced cue-burn since I was a kid (I learned early on to NEVER try to play a Columbia label 45 in reverse!), I never knew the physics that caused it. Thanks for the explanation!

 

Thanks very much for this! Definitely did not know the difference.

Reading some of the reviews, clearly the spherical needle is the better choice for DJs. Just last week I found a killer deal on a pair of Numark TT200s and picked them up. They both came equipped with a Grado Prestige Series stylus, which seem to score well with reviewers, but unfortunately are elliptical, not spherical.

Guess I better start saving again.