If Gary has a 40 y.o. 33 1/3 l.p. and he purchases the same album that was made last week.

would a vinyl/ audio expert be able to tell the difference ? on Gary's $3,500 stereo , in home ?

I don't know about Gary, but few of my 40 YO albums are without some sort of damage. Short answer to your question is, "I don't know."

I didn't consider the wear and tear aspect .

so lets say one forty y.o. brand new album
and one 5 day old brand new album.

would there be any significant , noticeable difference in audio quality ?

If the 40 year old vinyl had never been played or at least not very many times, maybe. Wear happens when that stylus runs down the vinyl grooves cut into the disk. Higher end components might actually make the differences more noticeable. A $3.5K system is probably a nice system, but not what I would call high end. Choices in speakers, stylus, amplifier, etc can get quite expensive. At one time, I could have spent $3.5K just on the amps, so the system may or may not be much of a factor.

a lot of variables. How was the old album treated? Is the new one an identical pressing? Many newer albums use thicker or better vinyl than old mass market pressings.

Some of us were the nuts that had the $400 record cleaning machines and did all the preservative and stylus treatments...

Also depends on if the master was identical or not.

I would in a general way say to below it will sound the same.

quote:

I didn't consider the wear and tear aspect .

so lets say one forty y.o. brand new album
and one 5 day old brand new album.

would there be any significant , noticeable difference in audio quality ?

Will probably sound the same or similar unless there are differences in the physical properties aka vinyl or if it has been remastered.

Funny enough, I just set up my dad's old hi-fi system yesterday! Because of that, I've been doing some research into buying new vinyl to replace the records that I trashed on my cheapo record player as a kid.

The answer is: it depends.

As others have mentioned, if you have a properly cared-for old record, and it was a quality pressing, it should sound great. It also seems that there is great variability in newly-pressed vinyl. There are companies trying to preserve the art by making quality LP's, and there are companies trying to capitalize on the resurgence by making crap.

The best advice is to research the actual album you want to purchase, and see what the online reviews say.

I have a White Vinyl LP purchased in 1976 IIRC that was a special edition Direct To Disk of Virgil Fox playing Bach on one of the finest concert organs in the world. Purchased it due to the pedal notes in Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and it's been played perhaps 10 times or so. The vinyl is just fine but there is a bit of noise due to the extremes of frequencies from 20 HZ to about 14,000 HZ. Even though there is a bit of hiss and a few ticks it was in good enough condition for me to transcribe it to Apple Music using a USB portable Soundblaster unit.

BTW, have a total of 4 recordings of this particular piece of musing and prefer the Virgil Fox version over any other, IMO he got the pacing 100% perfect and the organ used was first class.

So, yeah, 40 year old albums can still sound good. As can a 60 ? ? ? year old LP transcribed from 45 rpm masters of the Glenn Miller Orchestra on a greatest hits release sometime in the late 50's or early 60's. BTW, that was one of my Fathers favorites and it is pretty worn but I'll never sell it.

Keys to proper care for an LP, only handle it by the edges or the label, oils off your fingers attract dust and can act as a solvent over many many years. Also NEVER EVER store vinyl LP's Flat, they will warp badly if you do that. Store LP's on edge with the spine facing out in Alphabetical Order by the Artist, just like a Library would.

What’s funny is that the original master press was lost/damaged, so the record was digitized, encoded, remastered, and a new master press created.

The original will have wear damage, and the new one is a lossy copy.

50/50.