I am not suggesting any collector buy it but if you have rare vintage records of value I strongly suggest making enquiries as to who has one that can flatten/improve your records for you. In my case i only knew of one that was 2 states away in Melbourne so i decided to post my records away 6 at a time and then just prior to this i met a local Brisbane businessman at a march record fair that had just bought a Furutech DF-2 I started out giving him $60 records to see how it went and then gradually worked up my trust to give him LP's worth over $400 each. Nothing has come back worse and most have been drastically improved, it is all relevant to the type of warp, where it is and the vinyl weight for the most part. His charge $10AUD per record & the fellow in Melbourne was approx $12AUD per record. I incidentally do know of a guy in France with a machine too so i can't believe there are not machines scattered throughout the States that are not for the sole use of the collector. I had been wantingvto find something like this for years and now i am absolutely delighted and after reading this thread i am appreciating all the more my good fortune in 2018!
Quick update: I've managed to mostly flatten my Scott Pilgrim vs The World soundtrack LP so there is a slight warp, just after 2.5 hours in the Vinyl Flat & Groovy Pouch! I've got one more unplayable record to fix with a really bad warp on side B, an Extreme Noise Terror LP.
Okay, here's yet another update, I've managed to mostly flatten my Extreme Noise Terror LP in just two rounds: Round one: 4.5 hours and it managed to flatten the record a fair bit. Round two: 5 hours and it mostly flatten it down, except for a small bump. It's now playable on my turntable! I've decided to try flatten some of my newerrecords that were warped but still playable, namely my Convulse - World Without God second LP with the demo tracks (pressed by GZ and it's warped fairly bad) and I've gotten it flatten to my satisfaction within 3 hours! I'm currently working on my Hey Ocean second LP flatten, gotten it somewhat fixed after 3 hours and will be going for another round for 3 hours and 15 minutes tonight.
I recently got a vinyl flat and groovy pouch. This is the newer version of the Groovy Pouch with three temperature settings, made by Sunbeam. Obviously, the temperature settings are not very reliable/predictable (low/med/high), since they include a thermometer to test your heat settings. With mine, low is too low, Medium seems to be a little under 130, and high seems to be around 148. But it's a bit tricky getting a good temp reading. I tested both with the thermometer and with an IR temp gun. A little too low and almost too high. Not my favorite choices. Well, I've tried two records with it so far. First a warped copy of a 180g recent album. That took 8+8+12 hours to flatten at medium. A second 120g vinyl pressing flattened in 1 10 hour session. I'm thinking I may move up to the higher (high) temp for additional thick pressings.
I thought I'd try to flatten this horrifically warped The Beatles' Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club LP, Canadian pressing that I had someone ask me to try it out. Look at the image below and weep... The record is so warped that only the last two or three tracks from each side are playable. I ran the Vinyl Flat after five sessions starting from 4.5 hours up to 8.5 hours! It was a partial success, as I got it quite flattened but the damage was already done, rendering the first two tracks unplayable on each side but it was much better than before. Oh well... at least I tried, right?
It's good you mentioning the ruined tracks. The reality is you can't unwarp without further ruining already ruined grooves. Here is a video explaining it (it's in Spanish, but you can just follow along and get a sense of what he's talking about based on visuals with play dough). This guy makes the groovy pouch seem super lame.
Good point as i don't think everyone gets that heat 'even to repair grooves' can change them for the worse. The really high end machines principally heat the lead in and ending dead wax only. They can make a vast improvement unless the disc has more centralised undulations or warps. I know this as i have personally seen the results on a $3-4K machine on more than a dozen of my own LP's with differing warpage.
I thought I'd post this thread again and provide another update with a unplayable side B (Nature of Outtakes) on the Ministry 12" single that I bought late last year. As an experiment, I left it for about 12 hours inside the Groovy Pouch, instead of my gradual process I mentioned in this thread before. That reduced the warp but it left a humping audio noise at every revolution where the warp is still there. It went back inside the Groovy Pouch again and left it inside for 18 hours and I can safely say that it completely salvaged the record! I got a badly warped LP, pressed by GZ, that I left it inside for 24 hours straight as an experiment, so I'll post about it when this is done.
I've had both Vinyl flat and the groovy pouch for years. I swear by it. The thing is you have to estimate how much time you need to leave it cooking. I have a new 180 gram with a modest outer edge warp. How much time should I leave it in the groovy pouch? Also if it has not been discussed my best idea to use with the groovy pouch, take a regular plug in timer and remove all but one off tabs set the timer to 12:00 and if you want to cook it 3 hours put the tab at 3:00 plug it in and forget about it, turns off automatically.
I got an LP about a month ago that said "slight warp". The thing was unplayable. I put it in my vinyl flat and baked in my oven at 170 degrees for 18 minutes and it was flat as a pancake. Sometimes, it requires 2 or 3 bakes to really get it gone but I've found the more severe warps have better results on the first bake than the subtle warps.
Ya know, from reading people’s experiences with these, I think there’s quite a bit of variation in the heating elements. I’d start at about two or three hours on a 180 gm record and see what happens. For mine, it seems to be a little lower heat than others. I cook mine at a full 5 hours, plus another hour of cool down in the bag, and it’s just about right. Sometimes it needs to be even longer.
I suggest (as I have in the past) plugging your groovy pouch into a timer. "Set it and forget it". No need to worry about forgetting the VP is plugged in. You can start at 2 hours and if it doesnt work, up in to 3 hours etc.
I use a 24 hour timer, six hours on, six hours off, six on six off… Lather rinse repeat. I’ve never seen any shorter duration have any affect on any album. I do however elevate mine on a center stand so that the groovy pouch is not in contact with anything that might hold extra heat.
Whoops, I forgot to make an update regarding my flattening of a 180g LP pressed by GZ. After running 24 hours, the record is now flat. I also flattened my Skinny Puppy 12" single on transparent blue coloured vinyl with a very bad edge warp, so I ran it for about 16 hours and gotten it flattened enough to be playable without skipping.
The heat won't change the sound unless you over do it and ruin the record. I've used my friends Vinyl Flat & Groovy Pouch. No issues, when I did it right of course.
I've ruined a couple records using my Vinyl Flat and the Groovy Pouch: The vinyl flat has 2 pieces of felt in which the record is sandwiched inside the two cast iron plates. When overcooked the felt mats transfer an orange peel like texture to the surface of the record. The warp will be gone but when the record is played you will hear loud wooshing distortion, or a constant rumble like a greatly increase noise floor. IME, many records respond differently to different cook times I assume because of the different vinyl formulations. 6 hours could be enough to flatten one record but not enough to flatten some other record. The instances of my overcooking happened with the temp selector on Medium as the Low setting doesn't really get above 115*F in my pouch. I've ruined enough records now that I am a bit shy about using the flattener and pouch (and I chalk mistakes up to user error and impatience, not to the product itself). That being said, for me, 8 out of 10 times a 6 hour cook time on medium temp with a 1 hour cool down does the job perfectly.
Has anyone tried just leaving a record the the vinyl flat without heat? Wondering how long and effective this method would be
Yeah, I parked one in there for about a month, and it did nothing. I think some amount of 'heat' is key.
Weight alone does nothing to correct a warped record even if left for an extended time. My belief is that you certainly could damage the grooves with these devices. If a recorded was of a high dollar value I would suggest locating someone with a top of the line Furutech machine who should charge you approx $10 per record. These machines heat the disc's but not the grooves. These machines are great for most edge warps and can also help those emanating out from the label/dead wax area.
