180 Gram Vinyl/ OGV

[Saket]

Hello Members,

Always wanted to know about this. And very rarely it happens that even Google does not know much about it. That is 'OGV'. First of all, there is a lot of confusion regarding the expanded form for the abbreviation OGV too, but I assume its One Eighty Gram Vinyl and not some compression format which is probably discussed & assumed by many forums & the members there. In digital music, OGV may have other meaning, but not in Vinyl world.

Apparently, and what I know at the beginning of this discussion, I think that 180 GV does not actually weighs 180 gms. There is more to it and are expected to sound better.

I would be glad & thankful if someone clears the air on OGV!

Regards,
Saket

 

[jls001]

I don't know about OGV but here's an explanation of the weight of the "biscuit" which is used for "audiophile" pressings:

"180 Gram" refers to the mass of the glob of vinyl (called a biscuit) that used to press the disc. One twenty and 150 gram pressings are thinner, and hence cannot be cut as deep as a 180 gram pressing. The deeper the cut, the more musical information that can be contained in the groove.

12" Forty-five RPM pressings are generally of better quality because the groove has better separation throughout the disc, as are "Half-Speed Mastered" pressings. The wider the groove, the more dynamic the sound (wider tonal variety)

Radiohead has many 12" 45 RPM pressings. I own "Creep" and "Paranoid Android" in this format.

chadnliz is correct. You can definitely feel a 180g pressing, especially if you have a 120g copy in the other hand. One note though, just because a record is 180g does not make for a superior listening experience. Many records being pressed in this era of digital convenience are made from digital masters, versus the nickel-silver analog masters of old. It is hard to know if a 180g pressing came from a digital or analog master, especially since analog mastering equipment is becoming more and more rare these days.


Read more: What is 180 Gram Vinyl? - Home Theater Forum and Systems - HomeTheaterShack.com

Read also post #2 on the same thread which I think is pragmatic approach - 180 grams does not guarantee superior quality. My limited experience with records of various thicknesses bears this out.

 

[bhaskarcan]

Thanks to Saket for raising this excellent topic.

+1 to JLS. In practice SQ of records(in manufacturing point of view) are dependent on
1. Depth of the grooves (deeper is better)
2. Separation/width of the grooves

And to achieve the above two criteria one needs a thicker vinyl(theoretically). But the Master cutters of yesteryears was so very efficient that they could achieve maximum groove depth on a relatively thin vinyl. I'm talking about an era when everything of record manufacturing was done manually. So even the thinner vinyl in an expert cutters hand used to sound heavenly. And there are numerous example of this. This art slowly got lost with the advancement of technology where the machine needed a heavier mold to press a deep grooved vinyl. Hence we started relating heavier record to better sq which may not be always correct(heavy record with shallow groove).

I'm interested in learning about the technology used by CBS records. Most of their records released in India in early 80's are thin but sounds excellent(i.e. Michael Jackson's albums, most of the hindi film's ost). Are they really made in India or manufactured abroad? Can someone please throw some light on this?

Regards,

Bhaskar

 

[G401fan]

CBS records pressed in India in the early 80s used the pressing plant owned and operated by Polydor. They might have insisted on better quality control, and better quality vinyl (which generally is a mix of fresh and recycled PVC - the greater the percentage of the latter results in poorer quality discs), as compared to Polydor's own LPs of the time, most of which were abysmal - thin brittle vinyl and scratchy sound even when new.