How to cut your vinyl? What is the quality of this vinyl?

[Jean.Francois]

Hello,

I've been asking for a while, what if I made my own vinyl, what would be the quality of a single cut vinyl?

Indeed, some companies offer this service, to cut your own compilations, or to cut an album that does not exist on vinyl.

So I started the adventure with the burning of different pieces of music and also tests to have an idea of the quality of the sound. I went to the company discomaton.fr (also known as lacontrebande.fr) which allowed me to follow all the steps for the manufacturing of these test vinyls, thanks to Arnaud for his welcome. The purpose of this test is to be able to make measurements ( bandwidth, dynamics, surface noise) and also to listen to the cut records.

Here is one of the vinyl.

The cutting is done on plastic (here transparent), for the tests, the cutting was done at 45 rpm.

We cannot indeed obtain the quality of audiophile vinyls which are pressed with cyanate, which costs ten times the price of these cuttings, but the quality is there.

There is a nice dynamic range (up to DR17) and a wide bandwidth that rises up to 20 kHz, only the surface noise is not as good compared to a MOFI vinyl in the test.

	Master	Vinyl
Patricia Barber – This Town (song)	DR13	DR13
Dire Straits – So Far Away (song)	DR19	DR17

This Town : Master (blue) vs Vinyl (white)


You can find the measurements and also extracts ( Patricia Barber, Dire Straits, Michael Jackson) of the vinyls to make your opinion on the quality of these vinyls in direct cutting here

https://magicvinyldigital.net/2022/07/09/how-to-get-your-vinyl-cutted/

The tests are not sponsored by the company, I bought the cutting of the discs.

 

[DVDdoug]

Strange... Usually the "DR" increases with vinyl, unless they are using some limiting or compression. The same thing happens when you make an MP3, especially if the original is highly-compressed. But that doesn't affect the sound of the dynamics, it's just phase-shifts that move the frequency components around in-time making some peaks higher and some lower. Just one new-higher peak will increase the crest factor.

"DR" is more about the musical content (and the effects & processing, such as compression), not the medium. The dynamic range capability of the record (or an amplifier, etc.) should be some kind of signal-to-noise ratio (much higher than 20-dB or so), but that can be tricky too, depending on how you measure noise, and if you compare it to the peak signal or the average or nominal signal level. With records you can usually get a decent average noise level but it's the occasional click that's really annoying. Well... It would be decent if we didn't have digital to compare to.

 

[Jean.Francois]

Strange... Usually the "DR" increases with vinyl, unless they are using some limiting or compression. The same thing happens when you make an MP3, especially if the original is highly-compressed. But that doesn't affect the sound of the dynamics, it's just phase-shifts that move the frequency components around in-time making some peaks higher and some lower. Just one new-higher peak will increase the crest factor.

"DR" is more about the musical content (and the effects & processing, such as compression), not the medium. The dynamic range capability of the record (or an amplifier, etc.) should be some kind of signal-to-noise ratio (much higher than 20-dB or so), but that can be tricky too, depending on how you measure noise, and if you compare it to the peak signal or the average or nominal signal level. With records you can usually get a decent average noise level but it's the occasional click that's really annoying. Well... It would be decent if we didn't have digital to compare to.

The DR does not systematically increase with vinyl. If the signal respects the physical constraints of the vinyl, the DR does not increase. On the other hand, if the master is processed by a brickwall limiter, it is a digital processing, which is heavily used and incompatible with analogue media. It's the same principle with tape recorders in relation to the DR. I am preparing a more complete test on this subject of DR variation.

Indeed, for the tests, I compare the DR for music. I only compare the background noise of vinyl and cassette for the same song, taking the same level reference to be meaningful. This corresponds to what you hear when listening to the media.
Indeed, the occasional click is the real problem, it must be eliminated, otherwise it effectively distorts the measurements.

 

[atmasphere]

Lathe cuts like this have become a fun 'artifact' point of sale item for bands at shows. But it should be clear that such cuts will be noisy and limited bandwidth and in no way will reflect what is possible with a regular LP. This is because the setup of the lathe has to be done quickly and easily (every project requires a different setup) and the cutting stylus, which is different from the kind used for LPs, has to be pushed as far as it can before replacement (regular cutting styli are usually good for about 10 hours). Stylus replacement isn't easy as there are a lot of variables and the cutter head will need complete recalibration after its done. So expect limited fidelity from these lathe cuts.

 

[Cbdb2]

Test signals could show more.