Lacquer Plating Secrets With Record Technology Incorporated "Plating Guru" Dorin Sauerbier

a great deal to see and hear in this video! (top photo from 2008 RTI visit)

Record plating is the "secret sauce" behind great sounding records. A great lacquer cut can be sabotaged by inept plating. Only a handful of experienced experts know how best to do this, aided by the finest infrastructure. RTI's plating expert Dorin Sauerbier is one of the world's best and the infrastructure he's built at RTI over the past 20 plus years helps produce some of the world's best stampers and thus some of the world's best sounding records.

RTI plates for Fidelity Record Pressing and many other pressing plants so following the visit to Fidelity I drove the nine miles to Camarillo and shot this video with Dorin who gives us the most detailed and interesting look at how lacquers get plated.

One reason I felt this so important is an email I got from a readers who seems to have every version ever made of every great record. He responds to every reissue post with comments like, "Yes this new one is very good as is the original, but you know there was a second pressing done at plant in Lima, Peru that uses a special master and that one is easily the best...(etc.)" . He will know I am talking about him when he reads this.

Well, he sent an email in which he wrote "Once you've got a great lacquer, it's pretty much over...." (or words to that effect). Well, that is so wrong! The lacquer cut is but the first step to getting a great record! Plating can make or break (literally and figuratively) a great lacquer and produce either a mediocre or great sounding record.! If you're not all that familiar with the process, and even if you are and haven't been keeping up with new tech used to plate lacquers, you're sure to enjoy this video!

At the end is a very short preview of Patrick Leonard's new record...Also, for those who believe the rumor that RTI destroyed all the DCC Compact Classics metal parts, there's proof in the video that they didn't!