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Vinyl Wear

Leaving them out on the turntable with the lid raised so that all sorts of crap lands on them is one way of ruining a record. When one of my friends was still living at home he regularly did this and both his parents smoked like chimneys. The records were brown :eek:
 
forester said:
I've a few LP's that go back to when I had a BSR Autochanger in the late 70's, and can't say they sound worn. I doubt the ceramic cartridge stylus went particularly deep into the groove though. On the other hand I've worn out quite a few styli.
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yes i was kind of wondering about that recently - replaced the girlfriend's grotesquely worn ortofon cartridge for a DL103R - many of her discs that were previously unlistenable due to INSANE levels of surface noise were suddenly not so far from 'like new' condition ... i assumed it was something like you describe going on
 
Vinyl wear to me is really a non-issue. Of course I have some old used records that sound like they have worn grooves (I can't be sure though, perhaps just poor pressing?). I suspect these have been played with a very bad or worn stylus rather than wear and tear from overplaying. In general, I don't experience worn vinyl much even with the many used records that I buy, unless you include noisy records as an example of vinyl wear.
 
I would guess that - provided you keep discs with care and play them with good equipment - any 'wear' tends to mainly happen during the first few playings if the stylus finds some parts difficult to track. If the result sounds OK, then thay may be what you get each time you play the side later on. i.e. Good + care => not a problem. My own experience is that most problems are due to things like defects on the disc I bought! So poor manufacturing or storage prior to retail, not replay.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
When one of my friends was still living at home he regularly did this and both his parents smoked like chimneys. The records were brown :eek:
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Probably just TARnished!

I think there's far more incidence of bad quality vinyl (Dire Straits come to mind but there are many others) or poor production environments or packaging allowing crud into the mix/grooves, not to mention poor recordings, let alone scratches, stylus drop clicks and all manner of negatives. Amazing how good most records sound, even after many dozens (hundreds, even) of plays! :) Actual wear from reasonably set-up styli must happen, though. I have a couple of records where the sound is clearly not as sharp as it should be, and lack any lustre etc.

Not something to worry the average audiophile, I'd say.
 
is there the issue that old records may be damaged by the stylii used at the time but a new super duper profile stylus touches the groove wall in a differnt place below the damage?
 
I bought 'R&B from The Marquee' by Alexis Korner's Blues Inc. in 1962. I was 13. For its first ten years it suffered Dansettes. Next up a Bush 'Music Centre' (Which at least had a Goldring deck) I now play it regularly on my Orbe/Audiomods S7/DV17D3/EAR 834 setup.. Yep. it has the odd little crackle.. but mostly totally obscured by the music. I can say similar about many of my records.
 
rough edges said:
I've owned a decent vinyl front end for about 35 years. During that time, I've played some recordings too many times to count.
Maybe I'm going deaf, but I can't really hear anything that would indicate significant vinyl wear.
Am I alone here?
Is "vinyl wear" overrated?
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