Is There a New Record Pressing Machine Out There?


I bought Wilco's newest Album "Cousin" yesterday and noticed something I have never seen before, the record has no lip. The label area remains raised but otherwise the record is dead flat. It is a very heavy record, probably 200 gm. I believe records had the lip to prevent the tonearm from floating off the edge with changers which were way more popular than manuals back in the 40s, 50s and early 60's. With manuals the flat record is easier to cue by hand. 

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@larryi Thanx for the explanation. I will go back and look at a few of my audiophile pressings to see if there is a common denominator.

I also have quiet a few records with built in rumble. It would be nice if someone would come up with a new lathe. Modern computer aided machining (CNC) should be able to build better units. 

@larryi I checked a bunch of Audiophile pressings. The lip appears flatter on the heavy records, but it is still there. The Wilco Record is not only dead flat but the edge is perfectly squared off. The lip is rounded off on all the other records. When you get a chance see if you can find a record with a squared off edge. 

Viryl Technologies "Warmtone" is the newest record press. The molds are custom made for each machine and the lip would be the preference of the customer. I think it came out in 2017. 

I actually received a 180g record (Capital Records) that had around half of the circumference squared off while the other half was a normal lip. I returned it even though it played okay. I wonder if yours is a mistake too?

Not sure any record presses are new.  I visited one plant that had bought a couple of old ones from a sneaker manufacturer who had repurposed some record presses to make sneakers.  He converted them back to press LPs.