RCA Dynaflex vinyl - really that bad?

Be curious to know what the weight is on that LP. Pretty sure RCA Canada released LPs with the Dynaflex label and the Dynaflex logo on the LP jacket that turned out to be RCA regular weight LPs.

My RCA U.S. LP pressing of Berlin does not have the Dynaflex logo on the LP label or jacket. The LP weighs 106 grams on my kitchen scale.

I have an RCA U.S. LP pressing of The Guess Who - Rockin' with the Dynaflex logo. It weighs 100 grams. Also have an RCA Canada Gold Series reissue LP of Nilsson Schmilsson that is also 100 grams. The LP might have been a left-over from the Dynaflex series.

I think though, by the late 1970s most Canadian LPs pressed by both CBS Records in Don Mills, Ontario (DM etched in the LP deadwax) and Quality Records (Q or Qu in the deadwax) were fairly light weight. My STIFF Records Canada LP pressing of The Stranglers - The Gospel According To The Men In Black cut by CBS is under a hundred grams.

 

I don't have a scale unfortunately, but it's pretty lightweight and dark-colored?

 

Dynaflex isn't just weight and thickness. I believe the vinyl formulation is different too.

Weight notwithstanding, the 'bendiness' of these discs is the giveaway. You can't rely on the cover or the label.

 

Seems to me that every Kinks LP I bought on Dynaflex came prewarped and stores wouldn't take 'em back. I just had to get accustomed to the speed bumps on the first track on both sides. I must've bought other artists on RCA at the time, too.

 

I Have several titles as Dynaflex editions, never thought they sounded bad at all.
They are a very flexy vinyl which perhaps created the impression of being cheap quality.

 

Just purchased a Dynaflex of Lou Reed - Transformer that sounds superb. No anti-Dynaflex sentiment here. Thick or thin, it's the cut/pressing that matters, not the weight of the vinyl. Amazing soundstage on this record!

 

Based on your positive experience with the Dynaflex pressing of Transformer, seems like Dynaflex pressings were largely hit-and-miss - for every good pressing like what you have, someone else will get a lemon.

 

No problem here with Dynaflex's. The Bowie's I have sound great.

 

I only owned one Dynaflex, Space Oddity, and I thought the sound was excellent, the best of the Bowie RCA vinyls.

 

Well is seems we've gone from 'Dynaflex SUCKS' to 'Dynaflex is cool!'. Give anything enough time and it'll catch on.

Check out all the 'don't take my CDs away!' threads here too. Didn't audiophiles always hate CDs?

Seriously though, I wish the remaining pressing plants and reissue companies would take a cue from the old Dynaflex formula and give is cheaper, lighter vinyl that has better QC than the bloated mega-weight 'audiophile' stuff. It's such a tired marketing gimmick. :thumbsdn:

dan c

 

In the years that Dynaflex was being actively marketed by RCA (a few short years in the early 70's) I never found it more likely to be defective than other pressings.

 

I always like the way they sounded when you held one by the edges and shook it real fast.

Science Fiction.

 

G'day,

I've got a Dynaflex of Harry Nilsson's A Little Touch Of Schmilsson In The Night and it sounds pretty good to me, as good as my non-Dynaflex pressing. And quiet, too.

--Geoff

 

And it'd make it easier for people who buy new vinyl to move house.. ever felt the weight of a box of 180g + LPs???! Not to mention the cost of mailing one if you sell it. What a load of deceptive crap it is, a good-sounding decent quality record is a good-sounding decent quality record isn't it? Does it have to be like a slab of concrete? They weren't before the vinyl reissue fad started.

 

Just pulled out my Dynaflex Young Americans I bought in 1975 when I was 15. I bought it in Lansing, Michigan with the proceeds from my first summer job. Still sounds great!

 

My copy was defective and I took it back to Musicland in the mall. They refunded my money and banned me and accused me of taping. That would have been a few years later, but it was Dynaflex. I think the defect rate was much higher and they tended to be noisy too.

 

Their previous vinyl, somewhat relative to the plant used, was often noisy too. If anything, things improved overall from a quiet pressing standpoint once they went thinner in my limited experience (I don't have a lot of RCA pressed LPs).

 

Depends on other factors too. I have some that sound great and some that sound lousy. And various points between.

 

While I have plenty of Dynaflex LPs that sound great (Reed, Bowie, Ronson, Kinks, Nilsson), I have recently run into a couple that are stinkers . . . Cass Elliot's The Road Is No Place For A Lady and ***** Cats by Nilsson (which is clean as a whistle) were both disappointing sonically -- perhaps it has more to do with the recording and mixing than the pressing, mastering and cutting, but I was not really impressed.

I just noticed it auto-censored the title of the Nilsson album - hilarious!

 

Wonder if he'd titled the album Puddy Tats a la Tweety, what would the auto-censoring make of that?

 

I got Tomita's catalog on dynaflex mint for a buck a piece at a show not to long ago and they sound
wonderful. One of them was colored red or pink.

 

I just acquired a tan label Young Americans that doesn't say Dynaflex on the label, but is paper-thin … and still sounds amazing, just like the other Bowie Dynaflex titles I have. Huge bass, huge soundstage.

 

I've had an ok experience with them. Isaac Hayes-Black Moses was actually pressed as a Dynaflex and some copies have the standard RCA Dynaflex as a liner.

Oddly enough my post master was able to cram a copy of Henry Mancini-Mancini Generation LP in my mail box due to Dynaflex's thinness. It was a joy seeing that record in that shape! The record plays fine though.

 

I don't remember my black-label US Scary Monsters being Dynaflex.

 

Thats for sure! My favorite album by him is Seasons of the Heart and I have purchased at least five copies and all of them are terrible. The first song is quiet, and the noisy vinyl just ruins it. A real shame.