HFU HF Underground

General Category => General Radio Discussion => Topic started by: ChrisSmolinski on February 09, 2020, 1516 UTC

Title: Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon'
Post by: ChrisSmolinski on February 09, 2020, 1516 UTC
Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon' After Fire Burns Down Apollo Masters Plant

The California plant is one of only two in the world that manufactures lacquers, vital to the production of vinyl records.

The manufacturing and storage facility for Apollo Masters Corp. -- a Banning, Calif.-based manufacturing plant that supplies the lacquer used for making master discs, which are then used to create vinyl records -- has burned down in a massive fire, the company confirmed in a statement posted to its official website.

In an email to Billboard, Gil Tamazyan -- founder and president of the California-based vinyl pressing plant Capsule Labs -- noted that while it is "too soon to know" how badly the plant's destruction will affect vinyl supply, he predicts the incident "will cause a hindrance in some major way" before a solution can be found. "Unless something happens really quickly, there will soon be Vinylgeddon," said Tamazyan, who estimates that Apollo supplies 80% of blank lacquer master discs globally.

Full Story https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8550477/vinyl-record-industry-apollo-masters-plant-fire
Title: Re: Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon'
Post by: Pigmeat on February 18, 2020, 1428 UTC
I saw a piece on the Discovery Channel about that place a couple of years back. If you saw how small it was, and the size of their work force per shift, you would worry about Vinylgeddon, too.
Title: Re: Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon'
Post by: redhat on February 18, 2020, 1621 UTC
https://www.apollomasters.com/ (https://www.apollomasters.com/)
Title: Re: Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon'
Post by: Josh on February 18, 2020, 2138 UTC
If they could just increase the fidelity and bandwidth of the Edison phonograph cylinder....
Title: Re: Vinyl Record Industry Fears 'Vinylgeddon'
Post by: redhat on February 20, 2020, 0032 UTC
If they could just increase the fidelity and bandwidth of the Edison phonograph cylinder....

I suspect running time was a bigger drawback.  Most of the fidelity limitations were due to period methods of recording and playback, coupled with primitive manufacturing methods and levels of accuracy.

+-RH