Are The New Generation of LP's more durable?

[Gary Freed]

Hi all,

I've been sitting on the fence for a while and hesitating to jump back into
collecting LP's. I loved my Thorens turntable and deeply regreted selling it
some years back when CD's were gaining in popularity and after my 5 year
old cousin made frisbees of my entire collection one day.

We live in a small house and my kids are still young. My recollection
with my LPs was that they would scratch and warp. My Thorens tonearm
was manually and required an extra bit of concentration when placing the
needle on the record.

Has anything changed in the design of new LP's are they coated for protection and are the new tone arms easier to use without scratching the
record. I know my two kids will want to use the TT when I not home.

[Steve Hoffman]

Some are thicker and sound much better, but they are still just as fragile, scratch wise.

[Ed Bishop]

Little kids in the house, Gary? Jeez, better lock up your DCC and MoFi Golds, too....my brother used to ruin my 45's by marking them up with crayon(label and vinyl, the little beast)and I don't even want to talk about some of my early Lp's....now that he's 40, I don't have to worry about that anymore(I hope)...but yeah, kid gloves is the thing. That much hasn't changed all these years later.

Jut buy 'em those Disney videos and let 'em watch Teletubbies and Rugrats, maybe they won't notice the new TT and those Lp's in the corner....:rolleyes:

ED:cool:

[GoldenBoy]

Sure, if you don't play 'em. :D

[Ronflugelguy]

Wait awile, my young Jedi......let the children get a bit older!

[wmspence]

Gary,

I have a loaded Linn LP12 Lingo, cirkus, Graham 2.2, etc. that I never would have even thought about allowing anyone to touch! Especially my kids.....as much as I love 'em.

I agree with Ronflugelguy...........don't push it........make sure the kids are old enough to understand the language on the "police tapes" you set up around the rig.

Bill

[Michael]

Originally posted by Gary Freed
Hi all,

I've been sitting on the fence for a while and hesitating to jump back into
collecting LP's. I loved my Thorens turntable and deeply regreted selling it
some years back when CD's were gaining in popularity and after my 5 year
old cousin made frisbees of my entire collection one day.

We live in a small house and my kids are still young. My recollection
with my LPs was that they would scratch and warp. My Thorens tonearm
was manually and required an extra bit of concentration when placing the
needle on the record.

Has anything changed in the design of new LP's are they coated for protection and are the new tone arms easier to use without scratching the
record. I know my two kids will want to use the TT when I not home.


2 words...Cee Dee.:thumbsup: :D ;)

[Alan T]

I've noticed that my German WEA's don't hold up to repeated playings without getting noisy from the 80's and 90's.

[thegage]

While the fragility of records hasn't changed, I am tempted to say the average tracking force has, making it more difficult to scratch records. My five year old wandered over to my VPI a few months back when I left the dustcover up, and pushed the tonearm across the record. My setup is a Benz cartridge tracking at about 1.8 gms., in an ET-2 linear arm. Apart from the horrible sound--and look of horror on my son's face--the record is not the worse for wear. Of course I may be wrong about tracking forces, since I was never one to scratch records anyway. I still have a bunch of LPs that I owned back in college in the 70s, and played very often on what would be considered lower-fi equipment. Very few of them have scratches still.

Getting back to kids, IME the young ones only fool with the equipment once. They seem very willing to do the right thing once they experience the disapproval of messing with things. Teen-agers, OTOH, are the ones you REALLY have to worry about ruining your collection. As far as they're concerned, the world was created for them--I certainly thought so.

John K.

[Gary Freed]

Hi John,

My Son is 12 years old and my daughter is 9. I still consider them to be young though. They're both a little rough with things.