What's the benefit of heavy vinyl?

So, why is so-called "audiophile" vinyl heavy? What effect does the weight of the vinyl have on the potential sound quality?

Dunc

 

Well from what I remember of this pre-historic medium was that the thicker albums of my parents from the 60's were thicker and less flexible. The albums I had from the late 80's early 90's were very thin and flexible. In fact very few even sat level on the turntable, almost making the crude arm thing with a diamond on it fly in the air. So the thicker/heavier the record the more stable, plus possibly less drag effect. I'm making this up now.......

Amazingly crude technology, I hear some folks still use it.

 

Crude maybe, but effective yes, its like a 1950's Land Rover, very crude and basic but they climb hills bettert than the modern urban crap.

 

I reckon its just so they can off-load shite recycled vinyl onto unsuspecting customers. Some of the heavy reissues I've had have picked up scratches from just taking them in and out of the sleeve.

 

It should allow a deeper, more stable groove to be cut, and due to its higher inertia (mass) it will improve speed stability (which is kind of dependent on your TT to a certain extent though). Problem is that many maunfacturers are calling 180g LPs 'audiophile' pressings, which is utter bollocks, like Anex says, as most vinyl is recycled these days. If you want to experience real audiophile LPs, try getting a few from Vivante....Classic Records and Analogue Productions are two of the best LP manufacturers right now.

 

I can't help out with a technical explanation, but I can offer my own experience. I've got two 180g records (yeah, I know, hey big spender...) and they both sound significantly better than any of my other records. Quieter backgrounds, clearer sound, more life and body to the music. And that includes trashy music - Iggy Pop's No Fun, no less.

The only downside is the price of these things, but there's no denying the quality.

 

Some of the normal issues are thick again these days too - my copy of The Music's first LP is well heavy (not 180 gsm, but not far off). I have 3 Simply Vinyl 180gsm records, and they all sound pretty good to me (2 of them were got in sales from HMV - nicely!).

As others say though, hardly any vinyl these days is virgin - most of it is probably recycled from all those crappy Singalonga Max, Mantovani and Sound of music LPs that charity shops STILL try to get money for...

 

They want you to feel good about your purchase.
Vinyl weight is not a guide to vinyl quality. Where and when a record was pressed is.

 

I have not had a lot of luck with heavy vinyl.

Simply Vinyl is a case in point, everything i got from them is knackered now, and I treat them just the same way as my normal stuff which is fine.

I won't buy from them again.

 

The main advantage of heavy vinyl is probably that the groove on side A is a bit farther, physically, from the groove on side B ...

Anecdotal evidence suggests that records which have a groove embedded on one side only (it's not 'cut' into the record) sound better than records with a groove on both sides. The hypothesis is that the pressing process influences the molecules on the other side of the record. With very thin records, there's not much distance between the grooves. With a fatter record, the act of pressing the grooves into the record has less chance of disturbing t' other groove.

Another possible explanation is that the fatter record self-damps the resonances in the record caused by the stylus better.

That said, the state of the master tape, a good mastering and a careful pressing are probably more important factors, so I tend to agree with Joel.

 

How do you mean "knackered"? Just curious...

I plumped for a SV copy of "Love over gold" (shoot me!) as I'd been through 7 normal copies trying to find one that either wasn't noisy and didn't have bad end-of-side wear. While my SV copy is clearer, I reckon my least-crap 2nd hand normal issue has more musicality.

Mind you, I'd be willing to bet IF I ever found an original pressing of Primal Scream's "Screamadelica" it'd be shagged, so SV's pressing (nice £9.99 HMV sale price!) wins here potentially.

I still laugh out loud when I hear my copy of Nirvana's "Unplugged" (my only other SV pressing) - it wees all over the CD even on side A (which is noticeably inferior to side B, but still good. Side B is the side with the Meat Puppets on, so it's good that side sounds better

 

The problem with Simply Vinyl releases is the variability of sources - some are cut from the master tapes, whilst other are taken from shitty digital sources.

 

Ive got some great simply vinyl releases.

''second coming'' (stone roses) is a good one.

You can't knock them really, they are knocking out brand new vinyl for half the price of most companies. I'd take a SV release anyday over a second hand copy (with all the scratches etc).