Has anyone tried Vinyl Flat?

[JeffM]

There's an appliance on the market called Vinyl Flat, designed to flatten warped LPS. It basically looks like a covered pan with pressure plates inside. The idea is that you put the record in there along with the pressure plates, tighten down the lid with a thumbscrew, and bake it; either in an oven at a precisely measured 140 degrees, or in their optional electric heater, which costs extra but frankly sounds much less risky. When the disc cools, your platter is flatter. (Or at least it should be, anyhow...)

I've read some good things about it at some of the (very pretentious) audiophile forums. Before I think of buying one meself though, is there any Vinyl Flat owner out there who would be willing to flatten a disc for me as a sample?

I recently acquired a 12" disc of all the 1966 Christmas Seal radio commercials; with celeb spokespeople ranging from Sandy Koufax to Petula Clark, Mort Sahl to Buddy Ebsen, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward to the Smothers Brothers, and lots more. Trouble is, it's so warped it literally bucks the tone arm off. Anyone who'd like to flatten it for me is welcome to make a copy, and I'll cover all postage both ways, of course. Please contact me at [email protected]

 

[Rudy]

I haven't tried one, but I agree the heated blanket sounds safer. The oven here won't go below 175°F so I could not use it anyway--in fact, no oven I've owned could ever go that low. It is also a slow process--you "bake" the vinyl a small amount at first and check progress, and then increase the exposure time to see if it improves more. Obviously, heavier records such as 180 gram will take more time to flatten. (I sadly have a couple which were damaged in shipping that way.) There have been examples of doing similar with plates of glass, and some weights, and warming it in the oven, but the Vinyl Flat would be safer since the plates and everything else fit together properly.

Thinking of all the records I have, I do not have all that many that are warped, so I am not certain if it would pay for itself if I bought one. The warped LPs that concern me more are the ones with "dish warp," where the record does not sit flat on the platter. While the puck I use keeps the record flat on one side, if I play the other side, the edge of the LP is not even contacting the platter, and that doesn't sound very good. I don't want to spend hundreds on a periphery weight. I'm wondering if the Vinyl Flat would do a sufficient job.

In what little spare time I have, I've been doing some research into exactly how the stylus lines up in the record groove in regards to alignment, and cartridge/stylus manufacturing tolerances. A warped record throws off the stylus rake angle by a degree or three, depending on severity, while a dish-warped record throws the azimuth alignment off. So for me, having records flatter does help with the sound and the playback capabilities of my system.

One other issue I've noticed: A good cartridge/tonearm match is critical. (Think of the "springiness" of the stylus, and how having too much, or too little, weight would cause it to go out of balance and hop the grooves.) Mine are a good match, and I notice that it rides through warps easier. With my older cartridge, it really had a problem hopping out of the grooves, partially due to the light tracking force and "stabilizer" on the cartrige. Increasing tracking force temporarily sometimes helps plow through warps, but it also increases wear on the vinyl and can possibly damage the cartridge also. Records that are marginal, played with an older cartridge with a heavier tracking force, can sometimes make it through warps that others can't.

 

[JeffM]

Thanks for your comments. You've really "cut to the chase"; I have few doubts that Vinyl Flat is well-engineered and does work, but the cost is prohibitive for someone who has only a few warped platters. On the other hand, a VF owner willing to set up a hobby business of "de-warping" discs for a couple bucks each plus postage might recoup his costs and then some. (I tried my same request along those lines at the Pretentious Forums, but those clowns are too busy putting each other down to notice...)

I'm no audio expert; my vinyl system consists of a low-end 90's Sony turntable, connected to a garage-sale Kenwood amp and tuner and a leftover pair of 70's Zenith Allegro speakers. But it sounds fine to me, and I'm happy with it. I also have a really cruddy old Sears portable I use to "plow" skipped grooves out of thrift-shop records; it surprisingly seems to do no harm, and a disc that skips on my regular player will play OK after a couple go-rounds on that thing. Maybe not scientific or audiophile-endorsed, but it works!

 

[Rudy]

It would make sense for a used record store to own one of these, and maybe charge a few bucks to flatten a record (since it is time-intensive). Some shops will vacuum wash an LP--they have a VPI HW-16.5 or HW-17 record vac in-store, and charge a dollar or two to vacuum clean the records. For me, if the pressing were nice, I'd gladly pay it. I can do it at home, but it's a matter of setting things up, making room, and finding time to do it all.

I've thought of something along the lines of an "audiophile rental" service, where you could get a record vac, the flattener, protractors and a USB microscope (for aligning cartridges), etc. Things that are expensive one-shot purchases, but make sense if you could borrow it for a fee.

 

[JeffM]

I agree with your comment; though considering the kind of used-record store we have here (see my comments on record collecting) I ain't holding my breath. I've recently been reading a cache of old 1940's magazines for home-movie buffs, and there were small companies then that would edit, splice, and add professionally made titles to your home movies for a modest fee; so it's not an unprecedented idea. The rental service idea would also work on a local basis; shipping charges might make it impractical on a larger scope.

 

[Rudy]

It definitely would be a local thing, and probably would only work in larger metropolitan areas. I could easily spend $2000 on equipment alone to get started, meaning I'd have to get a steady stream of renters to pay for it all.

 

[Rudy]

I almost pulled the plug on buying one of these. Maybe late this year or early next year I'll give it a try. I don't have a lot of badly warped items, but a few have some minor bumps I'd like to straighten a bit. I even have a couple which were mishandled in shipping, and I might be able to salvage those. (They are not too bad and certainly playable, but I could not sell them as-is.)

 

[Steven J. Gross]

This is all news to me, quite interesting...