[78-L] Noisy vinyl

[David Lennick]

Some Canadian pressing plants were notorious for crappy vinyl. Quality used 
regrind well into the 70s (and apparently purchased it from a large syndicator 
of radio transcriptions), RCA's Smith Falls plant was rumored to have been 
sabotaged by a disgruntled worker who poured something like gravel into the mix 
used for mono pressings, and Compo's Cornwall plant had an employee who 
discovered he could go home two hours early if he cleaned the stampers with 
sandpaper instead of alcohol..it took two years to determine the source of 
these rotten pressings we were getting between 1964 and 1966 (London, Capitol, 
all the Compo labels).

At least one AM radio station in Toronto bought everything in stereo in the 
early 60s because they knew they'd get better quality pressings.

dl

Mark L. Bardenwerper, Sr. wrote:
> Pablo Varela wrote:
>> Thank you for the info, after reading this, I'd try on an old turntable with a ceramic cartridge, and I'd compare with another old LPs and Dynagroove does it better. It's clear that late in the 1950 nobody expect that the LP were played with magnetic cartridge.
>> Best regards.
>> Pablo.
>>     
>>
>> Dynagroove did use a groove size that was optimized for ceramic and 
>> crystal cartridges, and might be a little larger than earlier records.  
>> I am not sure, but it is possible.  What I do know about is that RCA was 
>> using several different grades of vinyl at that time, and some of their 
>> pressings from the 60s are VERY NOISY with a grain structure that can be 
>> seen if you look closely.  You can also hear it if you put the stylus in 
>> the ungrooved area of the lead-in and lead-out areas.  Black label pop 
>> albums that were pressed on the manually operated presses were the 
>> worst.  Usually a better grade of vinyl was used on the automatically 
>> operated presses.  Original Cast albums and the Vintage series usually 
>> also had the better grade of vinyl.  Red Seal also ususally had the 
>> better grade.  But ironically the best and quietest grade of vinyl was 
>> used on the Dynaflex pressings.  That is one of the reasons they could 
>> make them thinner.  They were always pressed on the automatic presses.
>>
>> How do you
> I remember this. We complained bitterly about the drop in record quality 
> for a time. As I recall, there was a strike in a vinyl plant and good 
> virgin vinyl was expensive/scarce for a time. Virgin vinyl should mean 
> less entrapped air. Someone else know more about this. I remember a 
> conversation a while back on the subject.
> 
> The whole reason for going to slower speeds was to get rid of surface 
> noise. Theoretically, a 78 should have better sound, except for this.
>