Vinyl & Data

One thing that I learned when I was looking through releases on Discogs is that not everything that I thought is vinyl is actually vinyl. Many 7"s (and some LPs) in the US were made from styrene instead of vinyl and made with a different technique, namely injection molding. Apparently it is cheaper to produce than vinyl and singles were basically seen as a throwaway product, so the fact that the quality wasn't as good as vinyl didn't matter. My guess is that by shaving off even a tiny bit of the costs per unit big savings could be made. Depeche Mode said it: everything counts in large amounts. I never encountered styrene records before because in my collection there are very few 7"s from the US, but recently a friend bumped into a few. The differences are obvious: you just feel that something isn't quite the same. The disc feels brittle and it isn't as flexible as vinyl. When you tap a styrene disc with your finger it also makes a different sound than when y...