Playing 45's: The Difference Between Styrene and Vinyl?

I concur. I have the 150, and I took extreme care in setting it up. So, although I rarely still manage to ruin a styrene pressing, or two, the strange thing is that of the ones that became damaged, I somehow have two or more copies, and am able to get a clean dub of them to the computer so I can edit the good parts together to get a complete good dub. I have one needledrop that is a literal Frankenstein, but at least I got it!

Anyway, with my 150, I managed to cleanly archive many styrene 45s that were destined for the trash can.

 

Are you sure about that? According to AT's specs, the compliance of the two seems to be the same.

 

The 150 is a heavier cart.

 

But, by the mid-70s, there really wasn't much of a difference between styrene and vinyl pressings as far as sound was concerned.

 

What does that have to do with compliance?

 

Everything!

 

Everything how? The stated compliance for the two cartridges appears to be the same.

 

As for the compliances between the two, indeed Audio Technica states the compliances are the same. However, they behave quite differently in my turntables, be it my Duals 701 or my Technics SL-1200's. In fact, the 150 is the limit the Technics can handle without excessive wobble on badly warped records. Bear in mind that the 150 is heavier. Now this might open up a new discussion about what a arm cartridge combination must be able to track accurately. In my opinion the record has to be blamed in the first place. I mean, you won't blame your car if it isn't capable to cross the Mohave desert.......Off topic, ofcourse. Anyways, this prooves how important it is to take your time mating a cart with a tone arm. Even if a certain tone arm specs wise has to be able to take. In my opinion, if a tone arm isn't capable to handle a certain cartridge, it will damage the record because the small footprint in the groove is causing lots of heat due to friction.
So audible sibbillance means the groove is taking much punishments at that position.
The stylus litterally burns the top of the tiny plastic away. On styrene these tops will simply break off, on vinyl they will be deformed. That's why back in the old days we sold lots of Lenco Clean units. This liquid cools the stylus, any liquid would do that, but the results are undamaged records, ofcourse within certain limits. A chipped needle will do damage to the groove just as wrong adjustments would do.

 

Chiming in on this, having tested both of these styli on styrene: DON'T. Both chewed the crap out of it.

The V15VxMR's factory original styli were great with styrene, despite the microline. But neither Jico is. SAS or otherwise.

Of the currently available carts I have tried, the Ortofon OM series has been the kindest to styrene, but you MUST test each new stylus individually. My most recent replacement, a Stylus 30, flunked the test, so the previous Stylus 30 is still on hand for playing the styrene singles.

My TT is a KABd Technics SL-1210MK5. I test the carts/styli on the unplayed styrene promo 45s I'm hoarding (mostly CBS labels from the mid 1980s).

 

I do it routinely. As long as you are extremely careful about the cart/arm set up, there should be no problem.

 

I just needledropped a styrene Coral LP (Josie Carey and Fred Rogers, Around the Children's Corner) with a new Shure M55 equipped with its stock conical .7 stylus. Tracking at 1.5 grams on a 1984 AR "The Turntable." Great results.

I cleaned the record with Nitty Gritty's enzyme cleaner, then a rinse with distilled water. The woman I spoke with at Nitty Gritty (Gayle?) said she didn't know if an alcohol-based cleaner (their "Pure 2" cleaner) would be safe for styrene. She'd never heard of styrene records, which I found surprising.

Thanks everyone for the advice and expertise in this thread. You helped me give my wife, who grew up with this record, a great Christmas present.

 

I prefer real vinyl to styrene... any time.

 

Styrene rules! (only half kidding) an interesting topic not often discussed. Styrene has an awful reputation since most of those used, older copies have been toasted to a crisp. I've had good luck with styrene, no problem (yet) played on an elliptical stylus, Shure V-15, M91-ED, Grado F3+, Signet TK-3, Signet AM-20, Nagatron MC-8 (0.6 mil conical) and a few more.

Styrene records are injection molded under pressure between two "stampers". So, a styrene record will typically have a seam along its edge, and always a glued on label (which sometimes falls off) A vinyl record will have a tapered edge or rounded, sometimes squared off by trimming the edge.. but no seam. Styrene records are not necessarily lower quality. I have some that play full frequency range, excellent fidelity, and supremely quiet. Because polystyrene is injected in pure liquid form, a new styrene record typically produces less background noise than vinyl, but not a hard rule as there are always exceptions. Virgin vinyl, for example, beats every other material in the quiescence dept.

I love many of my mint styrene 45's and would never part with them... examples of "well pressed" styrene, Bell records, (Mala, Amy, Bell, incl Sphere Sound.. high modulation groove and usually found severely burnt) Philly Groove, some of the Harmony LP's (budget Columbia) Liberty, RSO.

Vinyl generally sounds better, and almost all DJ copies are pressed in vinyl. But it is a mistake to automatically reject a mint/ NM record just because it is styrene.

Who can think of more labels that produced better sounding records on styrene?

 

Excellent comment!! Love the Box Tops 45's! When Styrene is good - it is VERY good.
I never was a big Village People fan - but that dang styrene 45 copy of Macho Man I recently picked up really slams!

I think the trick is to get styrene copies that have not been played with a bad stylus, and or an overly hot pressing.

 

Thanks, I really like the car !!!!

 

That's Brian Wilsons Grand Prix, from one of their B-Boy CD jackets. I had to settle with a lower priced GTO.
Think if I call Mr. Wilson to talk Pontiacs he'll answer the phone??

 

Go for it, and you'll receive no sympathy card from me for owning a tri-powered GTO

 

Here's some music of a different kind, the music of a 389 Pontiac:

I think this GTO has a powerglide trans, cause I hear only one shift, but sweet as can be!

 

Sorry to be off the main topic, but here it is....



When I used the 3-Deuces for a while;

 

I've used an AT440ML in the past and it would shred stryene. However on my current rig (VPI Classic 2) with an ortofon bronze fine line stylus, so far the styrene records I've tried did not get shredded.

 

I hear the AT440ML is a bad transmission, Arnold, (haha)

 

original hub caps, complete, My gosh, what a lovely car!

 

Old radio DJ anecdote regarding the styrene vs. vinyl topic: Those styrene 45s were susceptible to "cue burn." When cue-ing up an intro to a record we'd sometimes run the stylus over the lip of the disc several times to ensure that the cue was accurate. Now, consider a half dozen DJs do this 24/7 with a hit record, and in no time the intro to the song is blemished with a nice "SHHHHHH...." for the first note. It happens with vinyl too, but the styrene discs deteriorated more rapidly.

 

Again, maybe I just found that happy balance with my tonearm. What's more, my AT cart is heavier than your cart.

 

Realistically, how many of us cue up records today? Almost none of us.