This Could Change Vinyl Records Forever
The process for manufacturing vinyl records goes back more than 80 years. In fact, vinyl is made the same way Emile Berliner made his original rotating discs as far back as at least 1899. You create a master which is a reverse image of the record and you stamp them out one copy at a time. The process really hasn’t changed at all since then.
But now a Dutch company called Symcon has come up with the first new way to manufacture vinyl records in, like, forever. From TheVinylFactory:
“With this method, the plastic is injected straight into the grooves, which copies the grooves on the stamper better than the conventional method, in which the vinyl is being pushed onto the grooves at an angle,” Symcon’s Harm Theunisse explained to Discogs.
Usually steam is used to heat up the PVC puck to 180 degrees before it is pressed between two stampers. The force used in this process causes wear on the stampers, which can be used for 1500 to 2000 records each on average. The injection moulded method avoids steam, supposedly saving up to 65% energy, and applies no pressure to the stampers, enabling them to be used for longer periods of time without affecting quality.
Read the whole story here.
I think it is great that innovation is happening. However, injection-molded vinyl records are hardly new. A quick search of old Billboard issues (Advanced Google Books search) lists a story on ‘innovative’ injection-molded vinyl records in 1954.
https://books.google.com/books?id=lB4EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA13&dq=injection%20molded%20vinyl%20record&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q=injection%20molded%20vinyl%20record&f=false
There were serious fidelity issues with injection-molded records and the innovation was eventually abandoned. Perhaps with newer machine capability, the issues with injection-molding will now be overcome.