Is There a New Record Pressing Machine Out There?

@dwette I use vacuum clamping and I do not have any problems with lipless records sealing properly. 

@dwette  I am certainly noticing more lipless records and I have to say that I prefer them. For those of us who cue manually they are much nicer. 

@hometownhero Thanx! It is a Canadian company. The machine is quite basic. The old machines trimmed and spit out the records automatically onto a tall spindle. This one relies on a human at each transfer step. Good for humans, bad for speed.

The platter does not make noise. The Cosmos uses a magnetic thrust bearing. If you had a noisy turntable tight clamping might transfer noise better. With quiet turntables vacuum is a net positive. The wandering pitch of a record that is not flat is annoying.

@sokogear The mat on the Sota (the hard part) does not extend to the edge of the record. It is 11.5" in diameter. Only the soft vacuum seal extends past the lip of the record. Because there is a recess for the label and the mat is as hard as vinyl the record effectively becomes part of the platter and as flat as the platter. The main benefit of this sonically is pitch stability. Every record becomes a perfectly flat 200 gram record. People will mistake a quiet record for a digital source. 

@bdp24 They are not the only ones that do that. The Mat on my Sota is 11.5" in diameter for just that reason. Beyond that is the soft lip which forms the seal when vacuum is running.

@bdp24 I recently recorded to hard drive the Classic Records 45 RPM Led Zeppelin box set. I do not recall the records having a flat profile, but maybe that came along after the set was published. There is an advantage to the flat profile and that is the record is nicer to cue manually. The stylus falls into the groove without skipping down the lip which sounds annoying. Since none of us use changers anymore the flat profile makes sense. The size of your mat would not matter either. 

Another new one. Now what about lathes!

@gkelly Great find! It is interesting that they are having trouble finding a suitable substitute for PVC. All the suitable plastics are just as toxic. PVC is ubiquitous and very durable. Finding a better material is going to be very tough. 

@larryi I played the UHQR Aja last night and it has the same flat squared off lip. 

@bondmanp check out Viryl Technologies Warmtone, a brand new record press you can buy. They say it takes 18 months to pay for itself. 

@larryi I checked a bunch of Audiophile pressings. The lip appears flatter on the heavy records, but it is still there. The Wilco Record is not only dead flat but the edge is perfectly squared off. The lip is rounded off on all the other records. When you get a chance see if you can find a record with a squared off edge. 

Viryl Technologies "Warmtone" is the newest record press. The molds are custom made for each machine and the lip would be the preference of the customer. I think it came out in 2017. 

@larryi Thanx for the explanation. I will go back and look at a few of my audiophile pressings to see if there is a common denominator.

I also have quiet a few records with built in rumble. It would be nice if someone would come up with a new lathe. Modern computer aided machining (CNC) should be able to build better units. 

I should also note that this particular record is a fabulous pressing, as quiet as they come.