What's it called when there is a "ring of wear" on the LP?

I've noticed some heavily played LPs will have some strange ring of wear on the grooves. Basically I will see certain grooves have a different appearance all along the circumference of the LP? It looks like a "ring of wear".. It will only be a mm or so thick. I notice it is more common on outer tracks than inner ones. What is this called and what causes it?

 

If you can post some photos, it'll be quite helpful.

Going by your description, it sounds like groove wear/damage.

 

Some LPs visually show a difference in dynamic levels. Look at Crime Of The Century for a perfect example of that.



Our host in fact created a thread about this a while back.

Photo of a King Crimson record. You can SEE the dynamic range!

 

I am fairly sure it's not dynamic range . The ring appears visually different than just dynamic range. I will try and upload some pictures later today.

 

Yeah a picture would help. A mm is what 2 maybe 3 grooves wide. I'm having a hard time visualizing this. Is it on the surface, or does the "wear" appear to be from within the groove?

 

I've seen this on old LPs a few times.

Somebody tried playing the record with a nail or on an ancient mono record player with an arm that tracks in lbs. instead of grams.

 

I think I know what you are referring to. It's not that uncommon to find LPs at garage sales where the last song on each side of an LP looks like it has been played a lot more than the rest of the record.

My guess is it was played on a cheap TT and or the cartridge was not aligned properly, therein tracking got worse near the last song. Maybe it also could have been caused if the anti-skate was way off one way or the other.

Or maybe it could be a song/s that appear to have excessive wear were played more than the rest of the songs on the LP. Back in the 1970s some LPs might only have 1 or 2 goods songs. The rest was just filler.



.

 

That's due to the velocity trip mechanism used by older/cheaper record changers and automatic turntables. As the tonearm gets towards the end of a side, it starts pushing on a trip lever that will engage the automatic mechanism when it detects a sudden increase in velocity of the tonearm moving towards the middle when it reaches the runout groove.

As long as the mechanism is properly lubricated and working smoothly it usually isn't so bad, but as the mechanism gets old and the grease dries out, it takes more effort to engage the trip lever, causing the stylus to be pushed to the edge of the groove as it plays, thus increasing groove wear towards the end of the side. Eventually it'll get bad enough that the tonearm will start skipping because it is unable to push the trip lever, and some people might resort to adding more weight to the tonearm to force it to work, thus increasing the groove wear even more.

 

I think you got that decade wrong !

 

Usually called "ring wear", no "of".

 

That would be for the jacket, not the LP itself.

 

True, but I've never heard it used to describe a worn LP. Maybe that's a regional thing?

 

Ring wear is on the jacket. Groove wear is in the vinyl.

 

Yep, that's how I have always heard it used.

 

If the wear is at the beginning of a track, it could be cue burn. That is the result of a DJ back cueing the song several times (or just a few times with a worn or misaligned conical stylus or with an elliptical ). Also, a musician may play a section over and over again while trying to learn a riff (or is it a lick?)

 

Is it also possible a more difficult passage could have been damaged by mistracking more than less difficult parts of the side, so the wear shows worse for that section?

I’m not sure there is a particular name other than just groove wear, assuming this is groove wear.

 

When you say that you "see" and "appearance" do you mean it is purely a visual phenomenon or can you actually hear something amiss when that part of the record is playing? If the needle plowed an obvious ring of damage, I would expect that something would be audible.

 

Here are some pictures. It's as if the stylus dragged some debris that smudged the record. I see this often on heavily played LPs. Perhaps more probability of this happening the more times a record is played..




quicksilver time in a bottle

 

Needle burn from DJ sampling. I find used lps like that fairly often. More often every day. DJs record what they want and return or sell the l.p. to a record store. That's my theory anyway.

 

I think you might be looking at the rubber mat edge wearing on the record when the disc hangs off the edge of a smaller platter. Add to that a changer, and a non-rotating spindle dragging on the record, and dropping the record (or more from a stack) or picking up the record on a spinning platter.

 

Looks like that very thing to me. Usually the worst offenders are those BSR cheapie changers with plastic mats on the platters. A sure sign of it. When I see those, it gives me an idea of the life that record led.

 

It means it’s time to buy another copy of the record. Or, switch to the CD format.

 

....and clean your records! That one is filthy!

 

VG+++++++++++

 

My issue isn't RING WEAR.....but RING EMBOSSING. You know where the shape of your record presses through the jacket and the jacket conforms to it, not causing ring wear but an embossing on the jacket. Does anyone else get stressed over this?