New warped vinyl?
I had been giving this some thought over the last few weeks with all the intense heat we have been experiencing. I have bought some new vinyl recently and it has been delivered by mail, No big concern except that my new Capitol copy of Frank Sinatra's Come Dance With Me came today with a warp in the 180 gram vinyl.
It is not so great that it won't play as my TTs arm is pretty low mass, but to see the outer edge of the disc move up and down every cycle does worry me. I am not about to even try the "oven thing" and even take a chance on damaging my lps.
My concern is that with most of our new vinyl purchases going to be shipped to someone, a dealer for a sale at a show, or directly to us, that may be posing a bigger problem than I had anticipated. The outer cardboard box my lp came in was creased in one corner. The cardboard seemed substantial, but...
I am thinking that some sort of sticky label alerting every shipper that "this carton contains a vinyl lp and needs to be handled with care, kept out of heat and direct sunlight, and be kept on the top of mail stacks", or some better descriptive way to alert carriers that more care than usually might be needed. The Capitol packaging is excellent, but I am worried now that much of this new vinyl is $30 or more, not inexpensive to say the least.
It may be that the once thought frivolous VPI LP Rim Clamp is not so frivolous after all. (I thought it frivolous, and no one else that I've heard.) I'm changing my opinion, base on what the future may hold for lp shipments to my house by mail. That mail truck must be an oven.
Alan James
