I've heard them referred to as butter, soft. They scratch easily, obviously.
What I wonder is why, when something as soft as a fingernail can scuff a record, are they able to stand up to repeated plays with a diamond stylus skating down a groove?
Vinyl records have some very unusual properties and I'm hoping someone can explain this one to me.
Unfortunately, vinyl records are not immortal, so it's essential to take good care of them.
x-disc.pl
I guess one big difference between scratching with a fingernail and a diamond stylus running through a groove is contact time. It is much shorter with the latter.
The Google AI response to the question "why are vinyl records not harmed by diamond stylus" seems basically correct. I would add that even styli with "sharper" edges than the conical or elliptical shapes of old (e.g., the newer "micro ridge," "line contact" or Shibata styli) do not wear vinyl records quickly since the pressure against the vinyl groove is distributed over a larger surface area. You have to align such newer stylus shapes more carefully with the groove for best sound and minimal wear, but once that's done, they are relatively undamaging the vinyl, just like older stylus shapes.
Try ‘scratching’ a record using 1.5 grams of pressure and limit the contact area to only the sides of the record groove and scratching so your contact is also perpendicular to the groove edges and aligned with the groove.
Unfortunately, vinyl records are not immortal, so it's essential to take good care of them.
x-disc.pl
I guess one big difference between scratching with a fingernail and a diamond stylus running through a groove is contact time. It is much shorter with the latter.
An often quoted study from 1974 is Loescher & Hirsch, “Durability of Pickups and Records” (JAES, Vol. 22, No.10, December 1974) refers that record can last about 1,200 plays with very little degradation audible. They also referred that wet playback can double this number, but there are too many drawbacks associated to such practice.
Although dirt can reduce this number significantly some people refer that removing the plasticizers used during LP pressing by cleaning can also reduce the playback life of the LP, as they have lubricant properties. As far as I know this subject was never addressed in AES papers.
Ive pesonally owned more than 15,000 vinyl LP's and play-graded all of them. There are no hard, fast rules when it comes to scuffs, scratches and vinyl quality 'sounding' on playback. The stylus shape plays a role, for sure. The overall gain matching between RIAA phono stage on down to the speakers and everything in between plays a role. Very high sensitivity horn systems have an advantage to some degree, esp playing back early mono records. For whatever reason, this is a topic thats easier to demonstrate than discuss. If you ever heard a deep groove mono Blue Note thats scratched to death, and nary a hint of vinyl noise comes through, then you know what im talking about. Everyhing else is theroy and speculation.
