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Second hand vinyl surface damage.

Most analogue enthusiasts enjoy perusing and buying second hand vinyl. I was doing so this week, and picked out four LP`s that I wanted to add to my collection, but only after carefully inspecting their surfaces. Naturally a delicate item such as an LP undergoes `ageing`, a thirty plus year old desirable will not have escaped some surface damage. There are occasionally long and short deeper scratches, and more often clusters of light hairline scratches. If you want it you will have to put up with the result of said surface damage, so what do members consider damage enough to regretfully put the LP back on the shelf?
lastperfectdaymusic

Showing 2 responses by cleeds

cleeds
6,072 posts
 
russashe
... Sometimes by cleaning and playing a used LP, especially something like a D2D, old ground in dirt gets loosened and more noticeable in the sound ...
Huh? Why would the recording technique - which is all direct-to-disc is - make a difference as to how dirt is loosened from a groove?
cleeds
6,072 posts
 
whart
Impossible to tell without play checking the record, ideally after a good cleaning. There are tell-tales that can indicate a record is trashed, but even a pristine looking record can suffer from groove chew by old kludgey tone arms ... I’ve had records that looked like crap and plays fine and others that look fine and are distorted, the groove walls having been abraded or damaged.
Yup, same here.  Buying a used record is always a roll of the dice.
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