Colored vinyl is great. Let's discuss picture discs! What are your thoughts? See the links below for two great videos regarding the quality of colored vinyl records. • Does Colored Vinyl Rea... • Colored Vinyl Sound Di...
Hi Matthew. My opinion of picture discs is that can make great wall hangings in a music room but leave a lot to be desired as far as sound quality is concerned. All of the ones I have bought have sounded very noisy and ordinary. The older ones were worse, newer ones are a little better but still not good sound quality wise. Buy them for looks and using as a picture, that's what I have found. Black or coloured vinyl is great when made right.
I have 3 picture discs to date. Kate Bush "Cloudbusting 12 inch EP", Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds "Back The Way We Came" 2 x LP greatest hits album & Tool "Lateralus" 2 x LP. The first 2 sound really great & well mastered, but the Tool album sounds pretty rough with quite a bit of surface noise with clicks & pops. It's not too noticeable in the loud parts of the songs, but when it gets to quieter sections it can be irritating. Personally for this reason, I will not buy picture discs online or from big chain stores where I can not ask to hear a little sample of the sound quality. Thankfully the guy at our local independent record store is very cool & will always pop one on that takes my interest. On the whole I think it just comes down to how attention goes into the QA process at the plant where they where pressed.
I have about half a dozen picture discs and they all sound really good. Maybe I just got lucky. One in particular is my Yes album Going for the One, I have a black disc and a picture disc, the picture disc sounds better. They are really cool to look at.
I have a few and they are ok, but for me, they’re mainly decorative. For instance, my picture disc of Tubular Bells looks great sitting on my turntable when not in use. If I want to listen to that album, I have a couple other much better pressings. My favorite colored vinyl is RSD 2021 Tangerine Dream’s Live in Reims Cathedral. Each of the four sides is a different color replica of stained glass windows from the cathedral.
I think in general picture discs don't sound as good as normal vinyls because picture discs have a picture and layer of plastic on top. The picture + the plastic layer interferes with the sound quality.
I have them but I don’t play them because they are special to me. One is an Elvis disc a student gave me , a Linda Ronstadt’s that was vclt’d to me still in the shrink and a Beatles Sgt peppers lonely hearts club band given to me by my son. So I don’t know how they play. I never bought one on purpose. I have a colored vinyl beach boys albums that’s noisy. So I’m no expert just my experience. Enjoyed your video.
I only have two picture discs. Michael Jackson's Thriller that I bought new at Target. It has had some skipping issues ... I am not that happy with it. I found a black copy (new) on Amazon and am waiting for that record to show up. My other one is Ace Frehley's solo album that I found on ebay. It was also purchased new. It sounds a lot better and seems better manufactured than the MJ Thriller bought at Target. Shrug ... going forward I'm going to avoid picture discs. When the black MJ Thriller shows up the Thriller picture disc is going on my wall. Cheers!
A friend of mine had a picture disc album and used it as target practice for his BB gun. He shot through the center, so the grooves weren't damaged, so it was still "Playable" if you can call it that. When I examined where he shot the BBs, I noticed that this was nothing more than a piece of paper that was glued to a solid plastic surface for stability. and that the picture was basically coated with whatever material one coats such an object with and the grooves were pressed on that. After looking at that, I swore I would only buy records pressed on 180Gram vinyl, and nothing else. Any and all picture discs I own act soley as decoration, and I won't play any of them ever again.
Picture disk are great collectables and cool wall art, but not worth the listening time. The first listen on a high quality turntable may be passable but it will rapidly get worse with each additional listen.
