Polyvinyl versus polystyrene: What are styrene records?
No self-respecting music fan is immune from the allure of shiny black vinyl; aside from boasting captivating sound quality, the vinyl format just oozes with cool. Plus, for any and all music created before the 1990s, it is probably the format in which the music was intended to be heard. Walk into any record store today, and you will be greeted with two main types of vinyl records – 12” albums and 7” singles. Within those two groups, however, there are countless different subcategories and anomalies that can baffle those who are new to record collecting.
One such subcategory of records is styrene records. As the name suggests, styrene records are made of polystyrene – yes, the same stuff used as packaging material – as opposed to the typical polyvinyl chloride, which makes typical vinyl records. As such, you could maintain that styrene records are not vinyl records at all, given their lack of actual vinyl. Before we get ahead of ourselves, though, it is worth exploring why and how styrene records became prominent within the record industry.
It was RCA Records who pressed the first 7” single back in 1949, and the emergence of that format changed the music industry forever more. Singles were much cheaper to produce and consume than LPs, and they were generally more robust and cheaper to make than shellac 78 RPM singles, which had been commonplace prior to World War II and continued to be produced throughout much of the 1950s.
Despite this, many consumers and record companies alike were still struggling to adapt to the post-war landscape, and many people were less inclined to spend money on records. So, in an effort to make 7” singles even cheaper, some manufacturers began to use polystyrene rather than polyvinyl chloride when manufacturing their records.
Styrene records became commonplace around 1951 and were particularly prevalent in the United States. Certain record companies still pressed their singles on proper vinyl, but many more used styrene due to its cheap and abundant nature, in addition to benefits which resulted from the different manufacturing processes required to make styrene records. In contrast to vinyl, styrene records were created using injection moulding, with the paper labels stuck onto the disc afterwards.
For record collectors, however, styrene records came with multiple downsides. Namely, the sound quality of styrene tended to be worse than proper vinyl records, and the cheaply made discs were much more prone to becoming worn out. Collectors have since determined that styrene records should only be played with a conical or elliptical stylus, rather than a microline stylus, which causes much more damage and wear to styrene.
Generally, if you are faced with the choice of purchasing a vinyl copy, or a styrene copy, of a single, you should probably opt for vinyl. Not only is the sound quality better, but the record will stand the test of multiple plays with much more ease than styrene. For the uninitiated, though, how are you supposed to tell the difference between styrene and vinyl?
Without the aid of online resources like Discogs to check whether a specific pressing is styrene or not, there are a few tell-tale signs that give the game away on sight alone. For instance, the injection moulding process means that styrene singles have a thick, flat, untreated rim, and the paper labels are stuck onto the disc rather than pressed into the disc. Another way to deduce whether you are in ownership of a styrene record is to hold the disc up to the light, as they often have a dark red or brown hue rather than flat black.
Thankfully, styrene records are now a thing of the past. They were largely produced between 1951 and 1991 and were mostly contained in the United States. However, there still remains an aspect of collecting second-hand records that can be confusing or frustrating for record fans.
