Coloured Vinyl Lp's

[Melvin England]

I know that as a rule of thumb, the sound quality of a 12" picture disc is certainly inferior to its normal black vinyl pressing, but is one-colour vinyl inferior to black?

The reason I ask is that there are two recent albums that come to mind that are available in all sorts of different coloured vinyl as well as the normal black..... McCartney III and Abba's Voyage.

Does it pay to stick to black, or is there any difference with blue / red / yellow vinyl etc?

Audiophiles....... over to you.....!

[David Baker]

I don't believe so , with my experience with color records . I have a color picture disc of the soundtrack from ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW and that VS. the NEW black records I have is pretty much the same quality . Better than the vinyl of the 70's or 80's of course .

[Rob Young]

Melvin, this is an interesting read;

Does Colored Vinyl Sound Worse Than Black Vinyl? - Sound Matters (yoursoundmatters.com)

In my experience, yes coloured discs from the 80's were more noisy, especially picture discs. Although many cheap black pressings from that era weren't so great either.

Modern 180g vinyl is better than most I was buying 15 - 20 years ago, but then sometimes the mastering isn't as good...and so on...and so on...!

I have a modern Fleetwood Mac pressing of Tango in the Night which is on green vinyl and is pretty great. I must compare it to my 80's original black pressing and report back.

I'm using a Linn LP12

[Osi Osgood]

That was a fascinating article, thanks

[David Roberts]

I think picture discs are inferior in sound quality to black,but dont think coloured vinyl should be.
I only have a couple of coloured L P"s and they sound as good as the black discs I have.

[Mike Newell]

There was always an issue with picture discs and coloured vinyl in comparison to black quality quality. A lot of coloured vinyl is being produced at moment but in terms of quality I think a lot has to do with weight. Japanese releases were alway valued as being better plus small companies were as the majors reduced quality for costs.

Funny feeling the public are being screwed over by most of the recent releases but time will tell.

[Brian Fretwell]

I also think it was the then speed and number of pressings for a set of stampers that made quality variable in the years when coloured vinyl/picture discs were being made originally.

[Melvin England]

Thank you all for your input. Very interesting.

My McCartney III album is on blue vinyl and sounds perfect so I think I may have escaped with a high quality copy.
I have asked Father Christmas for a copy of Abba's Voyage but forgot to mention I would prefer black vinyl. Let's hope he is into his vinyl too!

[Rik Jackman]

Most of the new releases I get are available in black or 'independent shop' coloured vinyl but ultimately I feel the quality of the pressing and the weight of the vinyl has greatest influence on the potential to extract the best sound. If you really want to know then buy both versions and do a back to back test.

That said you then need to have some decent quality equipment to reproduce the sound otherwise you are only going to hear a limited amount of the music.

If Rob Young has an LP12 then he is certainly barking up the right tree!

I'm running a Systemdek IIXE/Linn Akito Tonearm/Goldring 10121GX cartridge, through a Musical Fidelity A1 amp and Monitor Audio Silver 200 speakers which does the job for me.

[David Baker]

Since I was the only "Yank " who offered an actual experience ( without the technical jargon ) did any of you experts ever have a musical experience with QUAD LP's in the 1970's ?

[Osi Osgood]

I never have, Dave, but I have listened to quad mixes of classic rock albums, and there is a difference. I wonder if there is an address difference between see through, clear but colored vinyl, and non see through, colored vinyl?

[Rob Young]

Hi Rik. Slightly off topic, but I bought my LP12 when I was a teenager working in a hi-fi shop for a couple of years. I've always loved the bright sound of the Audio Technica OC9 moving coil cartridge and a few years ago I had the turntable serviced and upgraded by a specialist Linn dealer, with a new OC 9 fitted.

For many years I had the Musical Fidelity A100 amp, which is still the most beautiful sounding thing I have ever heard. All that bass (and heat!!)

Sadly it imploded and a replacement A200 off eBay sounded equally great, but gave up after only a couple of weeks and was deemed ancient and unrepairable by the Musical Fidelity rep.

For the last few years I've been using a Musical Fidelity M6si which is lovely, exceptional clarity, although still lacks the punch of those full on class A amps.

[Brian Fretwell]

I'm sure I heard "Quad" demonstrated at a Hi-Fi show in the 1970's but never had the equipment myself. I can't even remember of it was a QS or an SQ set-up I heard.

[Osi Osgood]

Basically, "Quad" was surround sound, on an LP, right?

[David Baker]

You could call it that . It was the closest thing to a live concert . 4 different speakers , with different instruments coming out of each other AND one of the " swirling " effects ( at the time ) for music . Pink Floyd's DARK SIDE OF THE MOON LP was probably the best I ever heard in Quad .
So , yes Osi , it was the first " surround " sound mix .