THE MOST IMPERFECT MEDIUM EVER?

Hands up if you have ever ruined a vinyl record through either a simple slip or utter stupidity.

For me, my two hands will not be enough. Here are a few examples of what has happened to me in the past two years. Got a brand new 2011 pressing of Wish You Were Here, and right out of the sleeve it has a scratch that lasts about eight rotations. Not my fault, but an example of bad packaging. I ruined a rare 1982 Bob Ludwig-mastered pressing of Love Over Gold because I thought I could clean it properly. Dropped a hard-to-find Clearaudio pressing of Friends of Carlotta when the centre hole, always a bit tight, decided it was not going to be lifted off the turntable, then finally let go, and the wobble caused me to drop it on the back edge of the turntable’s metal platter. Not one, but two gashes on the last track of side one. Oh, and my 2003 copy of Dark Side of the Moon has developed a pop lasting two rotations which no record cleaner has been able to clean or remove. I also wrecked an expensive MFSL copy of Crime of the Century.

Don’t ask. It sounds like vinyl records and I do not belong in the same room.

My record for ruining records is not that bad actually, spanning some 46 years of collecting the black stuff and well over 1000 LPs. It makes me think of the medium and how fragile and downright inconvenient it can be. Warps, off-centre labels, entire sides pressed off-centre, non-fills, debris on, or sometimes even in, the record surface, surface bubbles, poor packaging, and finally just noisy surfaces – these are what vinyl collectors deal with each day, even with ridiculously expensive items. In addition, limited dynamic range and mechanical distortion are the realities of living with the medium, along with all the other issues mentioned.

Yet, many like me will continue purchasing vinyl records, as despite the many flaws mentioned above, vinyl can also be extremely durable and rewarding. I have records that are about 50 years old, and have probably been played hundreds of times, yet they still sound impeccable. When I compare the various music formats I have been exposed to in my life – vinyl, eight-track cassette in my father’s car, standard cassette in my own car, limited exposure to DAT, then CD, obviously the last will outlast the first. Or will it?

A few years after CD hit the market, stories started surfacing that it was not the perfect medium promised to consumers, that a scratch could make it skip endlessly, and that surface blemishes could render the disk unplayable. I gave up on CD after first my expensive SACD player failed to play the format it was designed for. Then my favourite CD player died. Goodbye digital.

All the while, my turntable just keeps going on and I am just baffled by the dizzying mechanical science that makes the whole thing actually work, using PVC as the basis. I sometimes stare at a record playing, and what happens physically is just way above what my head can handle. Vinyl may be an imperfect medium for the reproduction of music, but somehow, it has endured the rise and fall of other formats despite its obvious limitations.

Maybe imperfect is the way to go, after all.

Andries Oberholzer