Why do certain records wear so quickly?

Antinn, thank you for your detailed response. I put lables and dates on my records when I put them in the Degritter. "The Rhythm of the Saints" now has three labels. Once I see that, I know the album has problems. I have found in the past that buying new copies of badly pressed albums does not help. They have the same problems. So, as you explain, the batch was probably made poorly.

I cannot think of any older records (perhaps beyond 20 years old) that have similar problem. I have Van Morrison albums, for example, from over 30 years ago that have worn quite well. 

Given the various problems with vinyl, that is still my first choice for listening. With older albums that have been played many times for thirty or more years, and have been worn out, I simply go on the used market and look for mint or mint- copies to replace the worn ones.

I do feel reassured by you, though, to know that there are variances in vinyl and it is not necessarily my fault. 

The record ’vinyl’ composition is pretty complicated. Here is the only detailed documented composition and discussion I know of detailed in the RCA Patent 3,960,790, June 1, 1976, DISC RECORD AND METHOD OF COMPOUNDING DISC RECORD COMPOSITION 1498409551006799538-03960790. If you read the patent, there is a lot that can go wrong in just the composition, and this does not include errors in pressing such as time and temperature. But quoting the RCA patent “…results in a surface that wears in a smooth manner and not in a porous granular manner as heretofore experienced.” “It is a somewhat softer formulation than we had initially expected but with well-defined and controllable elastomeric properties.”

As far as the hardness, that can vary, but when RCA patented the composition above, in this article they noted that the final composition resulted in a softer than expected material - RCA Engineer Magazine, 1976, Issue 02-03, Development of Compound for Quadradiscs, by G.A. Bogantz S.K. Khanna - 1976-02-03.pdf.

The combination highly profiled stylus of lower effective mass + lower VTF + softer compound should theoretically result in less record wear or record wear as RCA states, and it has to do with the elasticity of the ’vinyl’ - it deforms (slightly) during play, and so long as the forces remain elastic, it returns to normal. Stylus Mass and Reproduction Distortion, J. Walton Wireless-World-1963-04.pdf

Note that some records may be using regrind in their ’vinyl’ composition and that can result in a harder compound with different wear characteristics.

However, it could be nothing more than the stylus essentially burnishing the surface that could result in producing the affects you are experiencing. The record may have very fine ’flashing’ that the stylus is wearing away or the record may have ’horns’ that are a consequence of original cutting. Some of these are intentional and various websites discuss the effects of over polishing the stamper to get rid of all ’horns’ but at the expense of losing some high frequency detail.

And finally, the individual record pressing plant quality inspections could be ’lacking’ and 180-gram records is no guarantee of good pressing. Just check the edge of the record is it smooth or very rough; you will feel a difference. Most quality pressing have a nice smooth edge; to me is shows quality. But this is not universal.

For the records that you experience what you describe, try recleaning and see if that fixes it. If not, hopefully you can appreciate that there are many different reasons for why the record can be experiencing what you describe.