Is There a New Record Pressing Machine Out There?
I bought Wilco's newest Album "Cousin" yesterday and noticed something I have never seen before, the record has no lip. The label area remains raised but otherwise the record is dead flat. It is a very heavy record, probably 200 gm. I believe records had the lip to prevent the tonearm from floating off the edge with changers which were way more popular than manuals back in the 40s, 50s and early 60's. With manuals the flat record is easier to cue by hand.
Quality Record pressings in Salina, KS has had the ability to press discs without a lip all along. My Analog Productions subscription series of Prestige Mono and Stereo reissues are pressed with no lip, while my subscription series of the RCA Living Stereo are pressed with a lip. The folks at QRP once told me they also have contract pressing jobs that request/require no lip on the discs. |
@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. |
@mijostyn I think they look nice, but it doesn’t seem to make much difference for me. I don’t manually cue records and I also use an outer ring. It might be that the ring pulls lipless discs down better onto the platter, but I can’t tell for sure. |
@dwette I use vacuum clamping and I do not have any problems with lipless records sealing properly. |
