LP's: the measure of off-centre record spindle holes ?

Yes. The consensus is runout should be zero.

Also if its not some will hear it, some will not.

Also some will complain regardless of whether they hear it or not.

Yet another consensus, some will complain while simultaneously clearly saying they don’t hear a difference and don’t really care- while at the same time writing pages complaining about what they claim not to care about.

But my favorite of all is once something like this gets going the consensus is it will go on and on forever, yet never really going anywhere, because everyone knows all along the answer is zero, yet cannot stop themselves opining.

Proved my own point. So there.

It only bothers me when I actually hear wow. For my ears, piano and violin sections are particularly sensitive to what wow does -- cause a regular, cyclical alteration of pitches.  Hate it!  I might say, too, that I have some 45 singles where the center hole is so off-center it's as if Beetlejuice is gleefully slowing down the turntable with his thumb. It's one of the things that put me at the edge of my seat waiting for Compact Discs to come on the market.

thanks edcny and millercarbon for your answers. Yes, the mighty piano tells you all's good, or not, on a number of levels. 

Millercarbon, I like the cut of your jib. Zero, is the answer, of course. And so it turns out for 50% of my quick sampling this evening. You proved your own point. Inspired by that, I'll begin to answer my own question. But I won't do this little research again.

Of the 19 quickly plucked favourites lying near my record player, listed below, ten have zero “swing”, 7 around 1mm, a couple around 1.5mm and one delivered just today, 2.5 - 3mm, an otherwise barely played first UK 1977 pressing of the Steely Dan’s, Aja. Max Townshend refers to these as swingers ! And so they are. 

You’d hope an ECM Germany pressing from the mid seventies, and Bach on Telefunken from 1968 would be zero, and so mine seem to be, and a Japanese Stevie pressing from the early 80’s is zero too. Yet that rather wonderful Ellington 1950 record from AP / QRP is 1mm out.  I returned to their Ohio office from London a pressing of “Something Else” at 45RPM when to my dismay I found it swung  2.5 - 3mm.  I’ve lost count of how many records I’ve declined that swung more than 1mm.

So I confess I hadn’t noticed the 1mm swing on the Ellington - but there’s fantastic music making on that LP that may cover the effects of the 1mm swing. Solo piano would be another matter.

Masterpieces by Ellington, 1950, 2014 USA pressing for analog productions, QRP, 1 mm

Beethoven PC No. 5, George Szell, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Decca FFRR 1950s,1 mm

Beethoven Pf sonatas, Clara Haskill, Epic Stereorama, USA, 1962, zero

Bach Cantatas, Telefunken, 1968, zero

Sun Ra, Sound of Joy, 1957, UK pressing, 1968, 1.5 mm

The Beatles, White Album, early 80s UK pressing, zero.

Earth Wind and Fire, Head to the Sky, late 70s-80s US pressing, CBS, zero

Lou Reed, rock ‘n’ roll animal, late 70s-80s US pressing, RCA, zero

Keith Jarrett, Koln Concert, 1975, ECM, zero

Pat Metheny, Bright Size Life, 1975, ECM, zero

Emil Gilels, Live Prague Spring Music Festival, 1973, Supraphon, 1 mm

McCoy Tyner, Nights of Ballads and Blues, 1980s US pressing, 1 mm

Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life, Japanese pressing, early 80s, zero

Art Pepper, Friday Night at the Village Vanguard, Contemporary Records, LA, 1980, zero

Art Pepper live at Ronnie Scott’s; Blues for the Fisherman, 1980, Mole Jazz London, 1 mm

Steely Dan, Aja, UK pressing 1977 2 1/2 to 3 mm

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue, 2010 US CBS pressing, zero

Miles Davis, In a Silent Way, MoFi, 2010’s, USA, 1 mm

Mozart’s Last Three Symphonies, Harnoncourt, Sony Europe, 2016, 1 mm

End (!)

If this is driving you nuts, seek out one of the Nakamichi turntables that can correct for off-centeredness; I think there were two models with that feature, now very rare and never since duplicated by another manufacturer, for some strange reason.

Zero for me. It's a long source of contention. Hopefully my newly acquired Phoenix Engineering Eagle/Roadrunner set-up will help alleviate this.

I've been reaming out the spindle holes for years to compensate.

I think we all know how painful that can be.

Yup, can't take um with me....

Phoenix/Roadrunner will help speed accuracy and stability, but how would it do anything at all to cure off-center LPs of their off-centeredness?

Well I said hopefully.

When an off-center lp rotates, as the cartridge sees it in real time there’s a slight speed offset, IMO. Therefore any cause of speed irregularity could possibly be corrected by a device such as the Eagle/Roadrunner that constantly monitors speed at every rotation.

Maybe a better way to say it is any deflection (tracing error) regarding the cartridge/arm’s ability to trace the lp perfectly will cause some speed irregularity. This is of coarse after I've reamed out off-center records to the best of my ability as stated above.

slaw

When an off-center lp rotates, as the cartridge sees it in real time there’s a slight speed offset, IMO. Therefore any cause of speed irregularity could possibly be corrected by a device such as the Eagle/Roadrunner that constantly monitors speed at every rotation ...

The Eagle/Roadrunner works by monitoring platter speed, so it will be of no help with an LP that has an off-center hole. That’s because the LP with off-center hole can’t affect platter speed, but only the effective speed of the phono cartridge as it tracks the eccentric disc.

Cleeds is right slaw. The feedback signal is taken from the platter not the record. 
If it bothers me I take the record back and get another copy.

Points taken. They make sense. I was hoping it would be an added benefit over and above. Thanks guys.

I usually notice this audibly, especially with piano or sustained strings, and it drives me nuts!

If not too bad, a workaround is to slightly enlarge the center hole with a reamer tool and reposition.  Do this away from the turntable and carefully brush away any vinyl scraps.  Return the record to the turntable centered by eye on spindle and hold in place with a reflex clamp.  Note where tonearm has greatest excursion from center, lightly mark the direction on the label with pencil (or post-it style flag).  Remove clamp and push record against spindle at that location to correct, and re-clamp.  Sometimes a few iterations are needed.  Next time you play the record, you can just look for your pencil mark.

Important:  The eccentricity not correlated between the the two sides, so this process needs to be repeated on the other side.  Usually the production hole is well centered in the vinyl, but somehow the master with the grooves wasn't aligned when pressed.

As ghsmd implies, it can be a tricky business to correct for off-center vinyl. For one, if you widen the vinyl's center hole it could drive you nuts to accurately place the record in the proper spot. I just don't have the coordination or the eyesight to pull something like this off.  Plus, how much time do I want to devote each time I wanna listen to my old Surfin' Bird single?

@gshmd,

My brother.

Just saying....

Conservatively, 85% of the vinyl I own is pressed off center. Yes this includes AP pressings sadly.