Some time ago, I have exchanged some of my vinyl with a friend of mine. He has a pretty cool collection, so much music that is not in mine. He gave me 3 albums and I did the same. My picks were Aveged Sevenfold’s City of Evil, Sercet Chiefs 3’s Book Of Horizons, and The Dillinger Escape Plan’s Dissociation. We are going to talk about this last one.
When catching up with a friend of mine, a few days after the exchange, he told me that he did not play the Dillinger Escape album because the holes on the record were too small, and he did not want to apply too much force when placing the vinyl on the platter of the turntable. He is right. I noticed that when placing this record on my system. I care about my collection and my audio equipment, I clean the disc and stylus before every listen, I am sure that the needle is perfectly aligned, and that the tracking force is the right one… I do all sorts of stuff, but why do I keep pushing this record? This could damage the central motor of my precious turntable.
So, I needed to find a way to fix this, because I want to have my system working as expected, but I also want to play that album.
According to Wikipedia, “The usual diameters of the holes on an EP record are 0.286 inches (7.26 mm).” To make the current holes on my discs a bit wither, I will use the most loved tool used by audiophiles, which is also the most delicate and quite one… the drill!