3 ms·

One of the two surfaces is going to be 'softer'. Either the needle or the disc. Usually the disc lost out.

• spijdar 5y ago
  On top of that, because of the way audio was recorded to vinyl, the higher frequency a sound was, there would be a disproportionate amount of wear/friction, I think. Either way, in this case the article is referring to the ultrasonic tone, and not to the records overall.
  • Someone 5y ago
    The explanation for that is simple: the groove is a 1:1 copy of the sound wave, so higher frequency sounds have smaller details in the groove. Those details wear away faster than larger ones. All mechanical record players have to pick a middle ground between picking up the sound wave and keeping the record surface pristine. To prevent wear, you want the needle to exert as little pressure as possible. That calls for a large needle that’s only lightly pressed onto the record surface. Unfortunately, that is exactly what you don’t need if you want to reliably pick up the signal. To prevent the needle from jumping from peak to peak in the groove due to its inertia, you want to press it onto the disk. Also, for the needle to pick up higher frequencies, it can’t be large (it has to be able to ‘fall’ into the grooves between the tops in the signal, and those are closer together for higher-frequency signals)
    • wheels 5y ago
      > the groove is a 1:1 copy of the sound wave False. There's an EQ curve that's applied to all records that rolls off the bass, which has to be re-added by the preamp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RIAA_equalization
• rwmj 5y ago
  Which of course made a change from 78s where it was the needle that wore out on the hard shellac disc.