Vinyl – Is Heavier Actually Better?

There are many websites and stores touting the virtues of 180gm vinyl pressings over traditional 140gm, particularly from a sonic standpoint. While this is a huge area of debate, one of the world’s leading authorities on all-things vinyl, Helmut Brinkmann, of Brinkmann Audio, would seem to suggest that heavier is not necessarily better. From the man himself:-

“180 or 200 grams records often don’t sound as good as the thinner ones. In my opinion this comes from the massive acrylic material. As this is plastic of quite some softness, it reacts in the form of resonances during the tracking process.

As good as the recorded music may sound, the plastic sound of vinyl does not…. the music is disturbed by those resonances.

Though the thicker record may be stiffer than a thinner one, the resonances are heavier because of the sheer mass of the material (which is not that stiff compared to the dynamic tracking forces).

We know that the needle is accelerated to a few G gravity, and that causes back force resonances in the vinyl material. The more vinyl is under the needle the more these resonances can arise.”

What do you think??

(story courtesy of Superdeluxeedition)