Vinyl Recovery


I have an average size record collection for an audiophile, maybe a couple of thousand records. But I find myself enjoying maybe 40 - 50 or so on a regular basis. The rest of them are there, but rarely played.

My question is related to the the length of time vinyl has to "recover" between plays. I recall an article 35+ years ago that spoke of the need to allow 24 hours between plays to minimize damage to the surface?

Does anyone have any information on the tine between plays to minimize damage? Facts to back up the requirement?
bpoletti
Well, I think the cement blocks-on-amps has more sound theory behind it than LPs needing a 24-hour cooling-off period before replay.

The cement blocks may or may not work, but:

Every active electrical component has a transformer, and every transformer viibrates. Generally, the bigger the transformer, the stronger the vibration, but some of it may be due to design and/or build quality. Amps have the biggest transformers of all. Capacitors are somewhat microphonic, meaning they can pick up the vibrations and recycle them through the circuitry.

Particularly in systems where the components are stacked, it's plausible that the 60Hz vibration of the transformer could be damped down with some weight on the chassis. I've heard and felt 60Hz hum from amplifier transformers. I've never encountered a hot record after a single play.
Johnny nailed it...another myth based largely on propaganda over logic...I came into audio roughly a decade later...early 80s..and the latest craze was cement blocks on top of amps... Anybody remember that? Record wear is solely due to hours of listening...regardless of time between intervals.
I got into quality audio in 1972, when this dogma was first formulated and repeated. Some advertisers and publications made it sound like your record was irretrievably damaged after the first play. Quadraphonic CD4 may have helped propagate this myth as those records needed carts that could track out to 40Khz.

During that era we saw ever-increasing compliances and tonearms with diminishing effective masses. Infinity's Black Widow tonearm had an effective mass of 7-8 grams. Recommended tracking forces (esp. Shure) dropped to 3/4 gram. I know I prided myself on keeping my tracking force at 1.5g or below, and this on an Altec compact system with Garrard turntable mounted on top.

I can't prove any cause and effect, but based on sequence I think moving coil cartridges started to reverse this trend, as many of them required tracking forces of 2g or even (gasp!) 2.5g. I worked in a SoCal audio store when we first got hold of a Fidelity Research cartridge and Supex step-up transformer. The FR sounded so rich, transparent, and detailed that we didn't much care what the tracking force was.

The last 20-30 years has seen the proliferation of HOMC carts with 2g+ tracking forces and an overall drop in available replacement vinyl compared to the '70s. And yet, the sky never fell. I got many of my LPs in the last few years from thrift shops. Many were no doubt played on poorly maintained stereo consoles with ceramic catridges tracking at around 6g. A few have rolled-off highs, but most--with a good cleaning--sound like new.
Most of that is debunked, along with temps. "They" used to say 24 hours, now it's 20 minutes. Vinyl is deformed from the pressure, but contact is instantaneous. Same thing for temperature. VDH measured some tip temps, but they were nowhere near what was previously claimed. Diamond is an efficient conductor of temperature and gets much hotter than a patch of vinyl touching it for an instant.
Regards,
Not quite sacrelege, burn it to CD, or your hard drive, tics, pops will all be there.
One suggestion, if you are concerned, is to get a second copy of your lp you play the most and alternate play.
Shure did that when they were reporting on their studies of what the effects of (elliptical ?) sylii had in relation to the tracking force/ultimate psi on a record surface. Rough memory says that about 1.5 grams or so (not exactly positive) equaled out to some 20,000 psi on the record surface. And something to suggest recovery time of 24 (?) hours to avoid permanent damage.

Time was late 60s or early 70s.
I read that same viewpoint and took it as gospel... A few
years ago I started thinking about how many times I had repeated playing lp's as a teenager and they sound fine now.
If your records are clean and your stylus is not worn it
seems to be a non-issue. I still wait an hour or so, and I actually don't replay most records in a single day...