HW RE: off into dodgy vinyl ness

[Doug Pearson]

On Tue, 27 Apr 2004 16:13:37 -0400, Eric Siegerman <erics at TELEPRES.COM>
wrote:
>On Tue, Apr 27, 2004 at 07:19:51PM +0100, Jon Jarrett wrote:
>>         I'm curious as to this idea of recycled vinyl; what was it being
>> recycled from? Not old records surely!
>
>There were rumours of this as far back as the late 70s.  We
>believed that funky-coloured records (red, clear, etc.) couldn't
>be made from recycled vinyl, and so offered a guarantee against
>that particular form of shoddiness.
>
>All of this was rumour and hearsay; now, I wouldn't bet a nickel
>either way on any of the above assertions :-)

It is 100% true that virgin vinyl is required for colored/transparent
records.  The one we had pressed up a couple weeks ago was delayed while
they waited for the vinyl to arrive from Costa Rica (??!!?!).

I'm not completely certain of the source of recycled vinyl, but it could
certainly come from old records (what else were they going to do with all
those Kiss solo albums that "shipped gold, returned platinum"?), as well
as anything else made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

>Picture discs were a different story; they were pretty much
>scorned.  There was a reason for that.  I can't recall what it
>was, but it too sounded plausible at the time :-)  (Could just
>have been pseudo-audiophile snobbery of course.)

Picture discs are made by sandwiching a piece of paper with the picture on
it between two pieces of vinyl.  Consequently, there's less vinyl in the
record, and having to graft two pieces of vinyl together may make
it "weaker".  But the vinyl itself has to be clear, and therefore virgin.

>>         Oh, and while I'm on the subject, does anyone know if such
>> things as one-channel pre-amps are available which might solve my
>> turntable problem?

I assume you mean "two-channel" pre-amps?  (unless you have a mono
turntable)  Yes, there are many possibilities; I have a friend who bought
one recently - I can ask for a recommendation if you like.

    -Doug
     jasret at mindspring.com