In the '60's, the Rolling Stones singles seems to be really a mess between the UK and the US releases. With some early stuff being recorded in the US (Chess), sent to the UK, the single is released in the UK, then a dub is sent to the US and it is released in the US. Steve Hoffman has stated somewhere that he got all the UK Decca Stones singles, because "for all the US recorded stuff, they sent the tapes to the UK, then sent dubs back to the US." For early stuff (Chess), I get that. But for the mid 60's singles, "Satisfaction", "Get off of my My Cloud", "19th Nervous Breakdown", "Mothers Little Helper", "Paint it Black", this really makes no sense. For example, "Satisfaction": Recorded: 12 May 1965 Released: US: 5 June 1965 Just three weeks later Released: UK: 20 August 1965 That is three months later So, sending the tape to the UK, then sending a dub back, then mastering that dub and doing the single in the US, that makes no sense. Seems to me there is no way there is enough time, three weeks, to send the thing to the UK, dub it, send it back and master and release it. Sense would be, record the thing, master it, get the single out, then send the tape to the UK. But.... The Stones were tied to ABKCO. Klein kept the master tapes in New York (So far as I know...). So it would make sense that the master was sent to NY, dubbed, and the dub then sent to the UK for the UK release. The examples above, are all RCA recordings. I have various examples of the US London and UK Decca releases. In the case of "Satisfaction", I have US London 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, and 1E stampers. Decca, various stampers. And the Londons sounds like the master and the Deccas sound like dubs. The Decca singles are not as good. And the Londons are styrene too, not vinyl, like the Deccas. Anybody know anything about this?
Styrene played using the correct equipment can sound brilliant, and far more consistently so than 1960s US 7" vinyl.
A reasonably good stylus, spherical or elliptical, will not harm styrene. I can swear to that. My London 45 of Street Fighting Man has had trillions of plays at this point, and it sounds just as it did when I bought it new. Here's an opinion of mine: A mint styrene record seems to have a lower noise floor than most non-premium vinyl.
Is "Satisfaction" on there somewhere? Meaning that the master tape of Satisfaction was sent to New York and a dub was sent to Decca?
With regard to playing styrene 45s, I thought I would ask the cartridge manufacturer. Here is what he said:
Hi Martin: Thank you for your mail, and thank you for using an Atlas. To give you the summary first, I can tell you what to avoid in a stylus for safe playback of styrene records, but unfortunately I am unable to tell you what stylus to choose for optimal playback of styrene records. When considering potential damage to styrene records, a key parameter is the size of the stylus side (minor) radius. Our experience is that the 2.5µm side radius of a microline stylus (as on our Delos) or the 3µm of our own stylus shape (used in the Kleos, Skala, Etna and Atlas) is too sharp for styrene records, and will almost certainly lead to damaged grooves. The next step larger side radius would be 5µm (which Lyra does not offer), but I think that this also will be too sharp for styrene records. The largest side radius that I am aware of on a line-contact stylus is 8µm; larger than this would mean an elliptical or conical stylus. I do not know if 8µm would be large enough to avoid damage to the grooves of styrene records, but if I were trying to develop a cartridge for playing such fragile records with as good performance as (safely) possible, this would be where I would start experimenting. (note that Lyra has no plans to develop such a cartridge model, since the 8µm side radius would definitely result in much less detail and resolution on normal vinyl records.) FWIW, a small conical stylus, which I believe is widely regarded as non-problematic for styrene single playback, has a combined side (minor) and major radius of 16.5µm. I hope that there are other information sources that you can access to point you in the right direction. Sorry that I could not be of more help. kind regards, jonathan Because that is sure what it sounds like. I think I'm going to get a couple more spare Londons...
That's exactly what I think, mint styrene, lower noise floor. Also, I really wonder if the microline is really slicing up the grooves. I think I'll try playing one of my styrene copies of Satisfaction twenty or thirty times and see what happens. So far as I know, I can only destroy tje record, but I can't damage the stylus.
When I tried out a Microline stylus on my Stanton cartridge a few years ago, I put on a mint styrene pressing of Barry Manilow's "Memory" 45, and let it spin in the lock groove for a while. After about a half-dozen rotations, I could start to hear the noise level increase. After about 30 seconds, I could see bits of styrene scatter over the lock groove. With my standard elliptical stylus, I could let the stylus ride in the lock groove of any styrene 45 indefinitely*, with no noticeable effect. *I'm not recommending anyone try this, but it did happen once and it's worth noting.
