Recycled vinyl has been A Thing for a while now… but is it really A Thing that sounds as good as non-recycled vinyl? A pilot scheme from Warner Music Group and GZ Media aims to prove that it does.
The pilot involved taking 10,000 unsold records, shredding them, and then pressing new records made up of anywhere between 10% and 100% of the recycled material – then working with Abbey Road Studios to blind-test the audio quality.
And? You can read the full report on the results here.
The gist: “The pilot successfully produced pressings suitable for commercial release, with evaluators noting only minor differences in audio performance across all variants tested, indicating comparable listening quality,” explains the report.
“Overall, the listening panel did not identify evidence suggesting that recycled mixed-origin feedstock inherently compromises perceived audio quality under the conditions of this pilot.”
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