Prognosis of warped LP?

At thrift i found this NM LP, fifty whole cents! Kylie Monogue. No dirt, no surface noise, etc. Probably an unwanted Xmas gift that was in storage for decades. But that is not what this is about.

It did have a small warp that I was able to slightly work out.

So when an LP has a noticeable warp anywhere, What does that mean for the life expectancy of that LP? Would it get worse over time if in too warm of storage or does anything really effect the degree of warpage in the "bad" spot? Would it necessarily be a "weak" spot on the LP in the same way that damaged areas on other things tend to weaken it?

BTW, it plays just fine, just a little wavy on one spot.
Are my worries that I may not get a lifetime of listening enjoyment out of a 50 cent Kylie Monogue LP unfounded?

 

At fifty cents I'd say you paid twice what it was worth

Minor warp shouldn't hurt it. Do you store them upright?

 

Yes stored upright as much as possible without having them fall forward.

 

It's probably worth more for having the misprint of Minogue.

 

Maybe a early "Mono"gue pressing?

 

Well however her last name is spelled. But yeah, probably worth, worth, THREE shiny quarters!

 

Am I alone in playing warped records without hesitation? If the warp is bad enough to make my woofers go crazy I start to worry, but otherwise I just play them without a second thought. Bad idea?

 

If the warps bother you, and/or have sonic effects than they can be fixed or made much flatter:

Vinyl Flat Home

You can find much discussion of it on the Forum. I have one and it works. Edge warps ate the tough ones though, I've never gotten rid of those.

 

yes, your worries are unfounded. it won't warp more int the warped area if stored properly (upright, not leaning). in fact if it's stored upright tightly on shelves or in a box the warp may flatten out a bit over time.

 

Some of us use styli costing in the 4 digits so we're not as carefree in potentially affecting the suspension.

 

In this case, you should have an equaly good tonearm that can handle and track the usual warps.

Best regards

 

Oh boy, can of worms now opened.

 

Has nothing to do with tracking. Please reread my post.

 

I have successfully fixed the craziest of edge warps! I have it almost to a fine art now. It takes time and patience and a bit of ingenuity here and there. A collector brought me his copy of The Who 'Live At Leeds' lately which really spooked me. It had a ridiculous edge warp and I thought it would be impossible. 32 hours later, it is flat and he was, in his own words 'over the moon'. It was the first U.K. press as well with all the inserts intact. It is quite valuable apparently. It's a nice feeling when you get results like that .

 

I'll play them but it really depends on how bad it is. Slight warps are fine for me but anything that makes me think "whoa!" means it doesn't get played, even if it doesn't cause a skip or for the need to jump out of the groove.

 

You mean using the vinyl flat or a do you mean with a different method?

 

I will sometimes judge a slight warp that doesn't interfere with play as not worth the trouble to try and flatten. I know @Satrus has many years of experience using the Orb machines and no doubt has perfected his technique, as have some of you who use the Vinyl Flat.
I've gotten better at using the Orb machine I have, simply by following the instructions and not putting every record under the longest heat cycle- I vary the duration of the heat by the thickness of the record as well as the nature of the warp, but I can't say that this is a very scientific approach. I'd guesstimate an 80% or so success rate- the worst are edge warps on old records where the record has apparently suffered the warp for a long time.
I know some of you will go through gradually increasing heat cycles using the Vinyl Flat- I did that for a few records early on, with mixed results. Perhaps I wasn't persistent enough. (None were extremely valuable so it wasn't a question of caution).
I have fixed some old records with significant warps on the Furutech, but I can't claim a 100% success rate, and sometimes, by repeated reheating, I exacerbate another problem. In one case-- it was the record that was issued for the Cloud Atlas Sextet (not the soundtrack), the thing arrived badly warped from EU and it was sold out (I think there were two 1,000 unit pressings). I did manage to flatten it to a fair degree- the record originally looked 'cockeyed' but after flattening, one side will play through with little distortion, the other mistracks badly. I think the groove path just goes off the rails at a certain point. It didn't play before and it doesn't play now. Copies of course are now in the mid 3 figure range- so I'm not going to replace it. Perhaps someone with more skill could have done a better job.
Once you start looking closely, many records are warped to some degree.

 

Bill is right, a lot of LPs have maybe some warpage but the cheap vinyl they used to press most LPs is not going to be perfect anyways.

So yesterday at thrift I found some 14" by 14" glass panels and figured why not try the oven method on a less-valued LP.
That turned out to be a disaster. While it DID flatten the LP, the surface noise was ridiculous like a super dirty LP plus somehow it warped laterally like it was out of round.

I have finally come to the conclusion that a warped LP just isn't worth the trouble to try to fix, at least in my case where none of them would be expensive to replace. If it is minimal warpage, it isn't going to hurt anything. If it is badly warped, it would not be worth the money or time trying to fix it, especially when there is maybe a 50/50 chance that it will be in any better shape than before. Warp is often replaced with distortion anyways.
Lesson learned. Just kind of sucks that when something gets bent or other damage, even an honest effort at repairs just will not restore it to 100% or even close. It'll never be quite right after that.

When I was into cassettes, I would sometimes try to fix them but it was the same thing - just trading one problem for another and it wasn't worth the hassle.

 

Great to hear this, could you please share with us how you removed the edge warp?

I found that same pressing of Who Live At Leeds complete in VG++ condition this summer. It was marked $25.00, hard to believe. After the store owner gave me a big discount for paying cash ($100 cash for my $150 stack), the record only cost me about $17.00!

 

The first thing to bear in mind that if a record is warped and it has been like that for a long number of years, you are not going to fix it on one of the Japanese machines with one cycle, probably. However, I was recently given a U.S. Capitol early 70s reissue of a Beach Boys album (the one with 'Good Vibrations') which had a nasty edge warp and I fixed it first time. I couldn't believe that but the owner of the record was really pleased. When I saw the Who record I really felt it would be impossible to fix it. And get this, the owner had arranged for somebody in the U.K. to flatten it previously and quite honestly that person's effort was a disaster. It was deformed at the edge it was that warped, just like a potato chip! It took me about 32 hours to get it right and the owner was delighted. In the condition it was in it was only fit for the dumpster.

Above all, you have to be patient and you don't give up too easily. Sometimes you need to reverse the record on the machine (as in Side 1 face down and alternate with Side 2 face down). Records respond better that way. It may be that having a particular Side face down will resolve the warp whereas the reverse will not have any beneficial effect. It is always good as well to put a record aside for a few days or even a week before you put it through a further cycle. It is all connected with this 'vinyl memory' phenomenon that audio writers, certainly in the U.K., used to write about in the 70s and 80s. The material will resist efforts to change its shape but it will succumb eventually. Of all of the records I have tried to flatten, just one couldn't be resolved. That was a U.S. Ryko copy of Zappa /Mothers of Invention 'We're Only In It For the Money' but that had a catastrophic pressing fault that could not be fixed anyway. It's always a challenge and every case is different.

 

I understand the cumulatively you did 32 hours, but how long were your individual heating cycles on average?

 

Just the standard 4 hours. 2 heating and 2 cooling. It is actually a bit less than 2 hours for the heating as it has to reach the temperature that is optimal first.

 

Bill, once I see any kind of an undulation or upward movement the disc goes on the Air Tight or Orb. I got the new Van Morrison at the weekend and there was a very minor warp on the first disc so I fixed that. My copy of David Rawlings 'Poor David's Almanack' was a little warped too which I put down to the hard stock Stoughton jacket and the shrink wrap. The record is only 140 grams or so, and it became 'misshaped' in that environment. If it was 180 gram it would have been fine I imagine.

I have never experienced groove deterioration or distortion regardless of the number of cycles I use. You have to be careful with the newer machines though. You cannot use ultra thin pressings on those and if there is no groove guard, the record can melt. My best machine is my 2005 Air Tight unit. I don't like the Orb DF03 anywhere near as much as my original 2005 machine.

 

Interesting. It seems like the old machine probably doesn't get as hot, which may give you more room for repeated heat and cooling cycles. I haven't had great luck doing repeated flattening- it either gets fixed the first time round or I'm out. (Not that I haven't tried).
I will say that reducing the duration of heat for the thin records gets me better overall results. But, I have to subjectively decide that in combination with the nature of the warp to arrive at a heat duration setting. In other words, I'm flying by the seat of my pants. As I think I mentioned at one point, the newer machine does have written instructions advising against a repeated flattening. Of course, I ignored that.

On the "groove deterioration" i'm not sure it is caused by the machine, as such. I think what happens is the record was pressed and got warped, probably in storage along the way. (That Atlas Sextet wasn't too old when I bought it sealed, so it must have been sitting in a hot warehouse or something really dreadful to get that warped--unless it came off the press that way, but that's a manufacturing defect, not a warp due to improper storage). In any event, the thing skipped like crazy.
Flattening eliminated the skips on one side (there is some noticeable distortion in the places where there was a problem). But side two- which also skipped like crazy- still skips like crazy. So, the groove walls run however they run from the pressing plant, warps or not. And the record arrives warped. I flatten it, but the stylus will not stay on the path on side two.

Did flattening make the problem worse? Not really, but it didn't fix it either. So, my conclusion (there may be others) is that in addition to being warped, it was defectively pressed.

I had a theory that if the groove path was going uphill or at an angle due to some speed bump type warp, that flattening the record may effectively change the groove path for the worse. But, I really don't know. Maybe I should send you this record to flatten for me. I paid about $40 for it new. It looks like copies are going for $500 last time I looked- sealed, so one might still be getting ka-ka even if paying the late entry premium, which I will not, for another copy.