What do LPs pressed with worn out stamper sound like?

I wonder if a parallel can be drawn between this and the fact that, of the records I have which mostly see only one side played frequently, it's the side seldom played that is noisiest. It faces the mat, picking up dust and wedging it in; it never gets dusted before play, never has the stylus plough out the stuck particles. Similarly, the 1st record pressed sits at the bottom of a spool for the period of time it takes for the last record to be placed atop the last spool, during which time it sits and collects dust. Or could it be that the stamper is actually cleaned by the 1st PVC puck?

 

Not sure if the dullness of most Nice Price records is caused by worn out stampers or the fact that many of those were often pressed from a copy tape several generations from the master tape.

 

The one exception for Capitol's mastering output would be those masters done by Wally Traugott, which usually sound exceptionally good.

 

Still until very late, very inferior in sonics and pressing quality to any UK, German, French, Dutch, or Japanese EMI Classical product. Unless USA originated. This is classical we're discussing, not other music. Angel for many years outside USA orginated recordings had very poorly mastered recordings. The first US pressed Red Label Angels were exceptions from the beginning of EMI/Angel Stereo until around 1982 (when things improved greatly, and pressing also greatly improved as well as mastering). The Angel Digital LP discs never had this problem, the Eminence (and the Angel imported Greensleeves) and last Angel vinyl issues (many of those were excellent). In the 1970's the RCA Music Service edition Angel vinyl was many times superior in quality.

 

I am kinda expecting someone to post about Vinyl Me Please in here..wondering if that is why thread is reopened as there has been a great deal of speculation about pressings at GZ, and some talk of stampers being overused..

 

Take an album like DSOTM sold heavily, I bought my US Capitol pressing in 10/76 and it sounded noisy, hissy, and dull.

 

Yes, the post 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo had a major effect on record quality. And the vinyl shortage is why so much regrind was used, and the move to thinner vinyl. And also record prices increased along the way.

 

Nonesuch in the 1970's oil crisis had better, quieter surfaces than Angel, so did Vox. I rarely had problems with either label's pressings then. London's Stereo Treasury Series UK Decca made pressings were superb and cheap.

 

Lot's of assuming in here, as stated people can't be sure if lack of sonics is do to a over used stamper pressing too many records or some other issue.

All metal parts get worn out so let me try and do a short explanation how sonic issues can be other things. There are a few ways to get a stamper depending on the volume of records they want to make. They can do a one step or a three step, a stamper is a negative of the lacquer cut at the mastering lab.

The lacquer gets cut and then plated to make a Father = (Negative) One Step can give you a stamper
The Father gets plated to make a Mother = (Positive)

The Mother gets plated to make a Stamper = (Negative) Third step gives you a stamper

All the above metal parts can get plated more than once but the lacquer is destroyed in the proses. Each plating is going to ware out the part being plated and reduce sonic quality of the new part being made.

The first stamper off the mother will be better sonically than say the the 10th. This is before that stamper ever pressed a record witch would gradually ware the stamper the more records it presses. The Father, Mother & Stamper all have a life span, the father and mother can be plated more than once as the first mother gets worn out they make another. This new mother has reduces sonics the father can give to the mother compared to the fist one. But this new mother is better than the first mother after it made 15 stampers.

So if you are grasping what I'm saying here, the one mastering that made the one lacquer cut that gets destroyed, can make hundreds of thousand records, all with the same matrix number. But as time goes by each part gets more and more ware exponentially reducing the sonics of a new part being made.

So to assume poor sonics on a record is due to the pressing plant using a "Stamper" too long might be wrong. If they used the Father & Mother to long plating it too many times we would have the same sonic problems.

 

And the answer is……they sound dull, flat and less vivid and they can be noisy. My father made stampers for RCA in Indianapolis.

 

Aren't "pops & clicks" dirt in the grooves? I've usually been able to eliminate them with thorough cleaning. The sibilance, surface noise etc. I've always assumed were caused by either pressing defects or groove damage and no amount of cleaning could correct that.

 

Would it be safe to say that stampers wear out at varied rates so while one might show compromised quality in the pressings at say 700 records, another might still be going strong at 900?

 

There no pat answer. How much the metal plates wore would be dependent on the the temperature they were heated to, the plating process and thickness, the pressure being used, and the type of vinyl being used. (Vinyl blends used for record production across the US and across the decades varied quite a bit.) Then theres the issue of whether the stamper 'wear' was enough to lessen the information (in the grooves) enough be heard by the unaided ear. Certainly at some point that would occur. I presume the only way to know would be to listen to an LP pressed early in its life, and one near the end of its life. But who can do that? Steve noted his experience here earlier in the thread. I've had later pressings (mother numbers) that sounded better than earlier mother codes. Between those mothers a LOT of factors were at play.

In my own collecting I eventually learned to stick with what sounded best to me. It seems to work!

 

I was unaware of that issue.

 

That’s a great question. I don’t think there is anyway to know what shape the stamper was in when it formed ur record. I don’t know if any published stats. I suppose a company could list on the outside of the album cover, the date stamped and the stamp number of the vinyl inside. Also, if the vinyl was a regrind, and if so, the percentage of new versus regrind material.

To some that info it might not make a difference. But to many it would. We would have to learn more about the stamping business etc.

I don’t see that happening, but in the long run it would benefit the manufacturer. They would charge more for a newer press with declining price as the number of presses and percent of regrind rose. But fir now, I don’t know.

 

Really! Now that’s interesting. He would know a good deal about why they age etc. He must have had a treasure trove of info in his head.

I’d never want to be rude or insulting. Is ur father still alive? If so, I hope he’s doing well.

 

That old mantra about recycled vinyl & record quality has been repeated so much many collectors take it as the gospel truth. Its a subject that fascinated me so much I looked back into technical journals and sources to learn more about it. Turns out the oil crisis had an effect but not quite the one commonly believed. In the US, 'virgin' vinyl was rarely used for pressing LPs - unlike in Germany Japan, UK etc. whose audio markets were much much smaller along with their penchant for quality control. Virgin vinyl was much more expensive than resused or leftover vinyl and was rarely used for records here since the beginning - this was long before any oil crisis. In the US many labels were even loathe to press 45's out of vinyl so styrene was commonly used. So called re-grind (which was not made exclusively of returned records being reground by the way) was basically lower grade 'non-virgin' vinyl - although the product could contain some virgin vinyl.

In the glass industry a common practice was end-of-day glass, meaning that if it was not crucial the product needed to be made of the best material, the manufacturing leftovers, the excess, scraps, rejects etc. from the days production was reused. The quality can still be high even if the base material was not the higher quality. Vinyl manufacturers did the same thing. One of the attempts to get over the non-virgin vinyl / cost problem (as far as how it could affect the sound of a record) resulted in the Dynaflex patent by RCA.

The oil crisis came about at the time (1973) when pop music record sales were increasing almost exponentially like every year. Demand for vinyl from vinyl suppliers was actually increasing quite a bit. The record industry was already looking at ways to reduce the cost per unit of the product they sold. As raw vinyl product became more expensive due to the crisis, the labels started squeezing costs and expenditures by being more efficient (read: cheap) with the raw vinyl they did buy; pressing records using less vinyl, increasing the stampers life, etc. Yes some records that were defective and got returned to retailers did get back into the reverse chain and ultimately to get recycled, but even that 'chain' back created costs. The percentage of returned records, under 5% according to one source I read, was simply too insignificant to the huge amounts of vinyl being consumed by the industry at the time.

Any perceived problems with vinyl quality in the mid 70's were due more to issues inherent to increasing mass production. We have to chalk this up to good old American cheapness and profiteering. Which worked pretty well if you think about it. Be intersting to see how the UK or Japan would have handled their own consumer market if they were faced with pumping out five million selling albums at once - with high & impatient consumer demand.

Personally, I never had many issues with poor record quality at the time. I did occasionally get a record with some foreign fleck or two (usually white in color) embedded in the grooves which I presumed was a bit of of paper label from a carelessly reground record. Indeed, it may have been just that. Or it might not have been. I was never able to trace the fleck back to its source....

 

Yes, he’s still around. I helped moved him out of his house in the last year and he had a bunch of stuff in storage from his days of making stampers.



In his last Role at RCA he was making the stampers for Video disk. If my memory is accurate he said they would only get about 1,000 off a stamper before the reject rate would start to creep up. In the case of the video disk the image would look bad and it would skip. There were very low tolerances for error. It was a very different situation for LP’s. He said they would get 7,000 to 10,000 off a stamper and could because the consumer wouldn’t really notice. It would play and that was enough. New stampers meant more cost to the company and production delays, they were fine with pushing it as far as they could.

my father was/is no audiophile. He was an engineer and a factory worker. He would tell you in no uncertain terms that there is a big difference between the first and last product off a stamper.

 

Tell em we said hey.

 

Can th OP change the title of this thread to "what do LPs pressed with regrind sound like?".

Seems like everyone is answering that question, any way...

Worn stampers produce LPs with rolled off highs, soft bass, and an overall veiled sound. Possibly more pressed in surface noise too, if it really gone.

 

They start as dirt. If the record is never cleaned they become a permanent impression of the dirt as the stylus passes repeatedly over it. Sibilance can be from a too hot cut which eventually becomes worse as the stylus struggles to keep up, leaving it's failings impressed upon the walls. Sometimes it's just dirt preventing the stylus from tracing properly, but it too can become permanent if it's not attended to promptly. A worn stylus can do same to a well cut groove just by being worn.

 

That makes sense. Thanks.

 

A worn stamper sounds dull and lifeless. As a general rule.

 

I think those Doors Rhino LPs are using old stampers. Noisy as hell. If not RTI is pressing bad stuff.