Cut above the rest

Back in the Eighties, Direct Metal Mastering of LPs was all the rage, but cutting engineers were soon returning to lacquer. Neville Roberts digs deeper into the groove

It wasn’t so very long ago that Direct Metal Mastering was heralded as the new era for vinyl as it promised much better sound quality. However, it seemed to go out of fashion as quickly as it arrived. But before we get into that, it is worth explaining how records are traditionally made. The source material must be transferred to a lacquer master disc, whether straight from the microphone/mixing desk – as with a ‘direct-to-disc’ recording – or from a digital master or analogue tape. The lacquer disc is an aluminium plate coated with a lacquer material. The lacquer is turned on a cutting lathe and the groove that is modulated with the sound signal is cut into it by the stylus fitted to the cutting head. After cutting, the…

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Hi-Fi Choice (Digital) - 1 Issue, August 2024

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