Surprised by record sleeve notes...

[Rob S.]

I put on my new $.99 Todd Rundgren "initiation" record and immediately was trying to figure out what was wrong with my system.  anemic sound, bassless, from the first 5 seconds of listening.  I gave up and sat in my listening chair and started reading the record sleeve notes.  At the bottom it read:

"Technical Note:  Due to the amount of music on this disc (over one hour), two points must be emphasized.  First, if your needle is worn or damaged, it will ruin this disc immediately.  Secondly, if the sound does not seem loud enough on your system, try re-recording the music onto tape.  By the way, thanks for buying the album."

What the hell?  sheesh, just say the quality will suck on this recording.   Anybody else run across this?  I mean I have 60yr old classical recordinds that sound "fuller" and more musical than this record does.  i want my 99 cents back.   

Rob

[richidoo]

The usual absolute MAX amount of recording available from an LP is 46 minutes for both sides together, that's 23 minutes per side. It can be stretched to 26 minutes with special dispensation without noticeably affecting dynamic range. That preserves the full depth of the groove for maximum dynamic range. To cram even more information onto the LP you have to make the grooves closer, which also means shallower. Dynamic range must be lost by doing that because the groove is a V of set angle determined by the cutter. To make the grooves closer cuts off the peaks making the valleys less deep. The deepness of the groove determines the dynamic range.

If they crammed the whole 36 minute song on one side, then that is severely crunched grooves. Somebody went to hell for that one. But playing a worn needle on such a small groove could damage the peaks which do not have much or any land between them to make them sturdier. The damaged needle will melt and deform the pointed peaks. There should be solid flat land between each peak to absorb heat and prevent flexing of the peaks under pressure of the needle.

Rerecording it onto tape will allow some compression as tape saturates gracefully when the VU meter goes above 0dBu (into the red). Compression makes the softer notes louder and the peaks less loud. At least 6dB of compression is usually possible even on cassette without sounding awful. Tape compression was used at even higher levels as an artistic effect on many recordings.

Here's some more information from the 'all knowing one:'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiation_(album)