Is heavy vinyl worth it?

Zaikesman, just read your post and your P.S.: I have no idea what you are talking about in that P.S. of yours. Someone once walked this earth, multiplied fishes, and talked in parables. Seems he made a lot more sense than what I can make out of what I take as being some kind of garbled insinuations. Speak up my man. Use plain language. Thanks.

Plain language: It seems to me as if you were trying to 'get a rise' among the vinyl crowd with your first post (commonly called 'trolling' - and this is a subject area in which you've been known to enjoy ruffling some feathers before), and when none was forthcoming, you manufactured one that didn't exist. Where the heck did you come up with that unprovoked attack on Onhwy61? Your response to his answer to your original post seemingly bears no relation to his actual words or perceived intent, IMO. I thought he handled it like a gentleman though. Let me be clear, I have no problem with your original post (despite what I see as your intent more to provoke than to illuminate), just your uncalled-for and out-of-left-field followup. As I've said in the past, I actually value your playing the devil's advocate around here (a custom I practice myself), but to do so effectively, something stronger and more relevant than what was offered this time is required. Or maybe your history of inviting audiophile fire has left you a bit too thin-skinned for your own rhetorical good? Whatever, I hope you recover your fair combative touch my man, because we need a few worthwhile naysayers in our midst.

OBVIOUSLY some recording sound better than others, however, years ago, using the best Linn LP 12, then the Sota, with the Zeta Arm and a Koetsu cartridge; in a one to one listening session of Ella, new, and an old (three times heavier pressing) it was shocking. The heavier sounded much better; to the point of almost being a different mix, though it wasn't.
It was at that time that I concluded that the energy put onto the vinyl, by the cartridge, (friction etc) was absorbed, and lessened with the heavier piece of vinyl. Shortly thereafter, vacuum tables, which sucked the vinyl on to the surface of the 11 lb platter of the Sota, became very popular. These are similar, though seemingly different things. Greater mass, with coupling of the vinyl to the platter, or simply more vinyl for energy dissipation.
Go heavy.

Zaikesman, in a bolt of counter-intuitive energy I recently purchased (and I am repeating myself here, so people who know this tale can go and do something else) a Rega P-9 with RB 1000 arm and an Ortofon Kontrapunkt B cartridge and, this week, got a used Audio Research PH 3. For me it is a considerable expense. That I did this on what is for me a tangent makes it even more of a challenge. There is one store that I know of here in Montreal where new vinyl can be purchased. Over the last little while I bought 13 new albums and have had many surprises (both good and bad) but, unfortunately, the bad ones seem to weigh more heavily. The initial question was on the value of spending on heavier vinyl. One of the albums I bought was a reissue of Mile Davis' “My Funny Valentine” on 180-gram vinyl. Before hearing it and just by a visual examination I even said that it looked nice and flat, this based on my belief that these pressings were "audiophile" grade. Well to my surprise and consternation the damn thing was so warped I couldn't even cue it. The store was nice enough to exchange it, that is not the problem (although I fear that if I bring back every record that I find is wanting insofar as pressing and surfaces go, that I will be told (probably politely) to take a hike or, as Hwy 61 so nicely put, that if I can't accept the trial and tribulations of vinyl on the road to superior analog sound I need not bother joining the club). I could run down the list of what I bought, but why bother. Suffice it to say that the replacement 180-gram album Miles Davis "Seven Steps to Heaven" is flat and as noise free as analog probably gets. The "ordinary" pressings are a mixed bag. The worst I got by far is a reissue of Roland Kirk's "The Inflated Tear" that is so noisy, that has a surface scratch and an edge warp. At nearly twenty bucks it is good for the garbage. Another one in the same vein is Lee Morgan's "Candy". On the positive side, two, for want of a better expression, NOS, Pablo albums of Zoot Sims are good pressings and the music is great. So, based on this limited sampling, I don’t think that heavier vinyl is a guarantee of anything, except a steeper price. When analog sounds good, it is really nice, but when you just spent forty bucks on two albums that are unplayable are you wrong to conclude that, insofar as the quality of pressings, nothing has changed in over twenty years? The next purchase is some form of record cleaning machine. I will then be able to put to the test the myriad suggestions I have gotten that the noise is usually the result of dirty grooves. Hell, a fellow even opined that edge warps don't cause any audible problems that it's the dirt in the hard to reach warped areas that is the culprit! I guess I will be able to test firsthand this proposition. Another step I want to take is going over the cart set-up, possibly by purchasing a Wallytractor. I still have a bunch of test discs from years gone by (Omnidisc, two Shure test records and one from McGill University issued by Sound & Vision many moons ago). I am still uncertain that I have the patience and dexterity to go through this process though, and may decide to find a technician knowledgeable in such things. So don't read too much or too little in what I write and don't beat a man for trying. Insofar as the clubbish attitude that vinyl is only for the courageous, the well heeled or the one's in the know, spare me. Good day.

Pbb, didn't you once state that too much bacon was bad for your chlorestoral?