cnx_vinyl/docs/suppliers/vendor-landscape.md

Vendor Landscape

Research on candidate vendors for the production chain beyond the Newbilt pressing line (from vendor sites and trade press; capabilities are claims until quotes and visits verify them). Pricing is unpublished across the board: every one of these is a quote-on-request conversation.

The tabular needs-and-suppliers map lives in equipment-suppliers.md; this document is the narrative per vendor.

Mastering and cutting: Agnew Analog (Greece)

Agnew Analog Reference Instruments builds the Type 612 disk mastering lathe (unveiled 2023, billed in the trade press as the first all-new lacquer cutting lathe since the mid-1960s) and the companion Type 602 stereo cutter head, sold turnkey or as components. Bespoke, low-volume manufacturing by J. I. Agnew, so expect long build times. The lathe is only the platform: a working cutting room additionally needs cutter amplifiers, a mastering console, a preview/pitch-automation solution, vacuum and swarf handling, plus lacquer blanks and styli as consumables.

Silvering and electroforming equipment: Plating Power / Digital Matrix (USA)

Plating Power is the vinyl brand of Digital Matrix Corporation (Farmingdale, NY), the dominant turnkey vendor for vinyl galvanics. Their line covers silvering (VLSS station), nickel pre-plate (VLPP), production electroforming (VLFP 2/4/6-cell system), and electro-clean/passivation (EC-1000), all built for clean-room use with fume extraction hookups. Two gaps matter for this project: they supply no closed-loop water treatment or metal recovery (a separate industrial water-treatment vendor must deliver the zero-discharge system; the zero-discharge plating room at Gotta Groove Records in Ohio, built around a wastewater evaporator, is the reference model), and no stamper punching/finishing equipment (see Sibert below). No Southeast Asia distributor; contact is via the US factory or their Japan/Korea distributors.

Stamper preparation: Sibert Instruments (UK)

Sibert Instruments (Hampshire, in this niche since the early 1970s) makes the machines that turn a raw electroformed nickel shell into a press-ready stamper: the VSP center punch, VSF back-finisher, and VSC coiner (trim and form in one pass). One-off capital equipment filling exactly the gap between the plating line and the presses.

Stamper service, as a bridge: Stamper Discs (UK)

Stamper Discs (Sheffield, founded 2018, family-run) is a trade galvanics service: send lacquers or DMM masters, get back press-ready 1-step or 3-step stampers in 7"/10"/12", explicitly made to fit Viryl, Toolex, and Newbilt molds. They ship to 30+ countries and can broker lacquer cutting through European partners. Natural role for CNX Vinyl: stamper supplier while the in-house galvanics line is being built, then overflow capacity and a quality benchmark. Watch-outs: a small single-site operation, no documented Asia customers yet, and two international freight legs per job.

Fully automated presses: Pheenix Alpha (Sweden)

Pheenix Alpha (Solna) is the direct successor of Toolex Alpha, founded in 2006 by former Toolex staff. Their AD12 is the continuation of the original 1977 fully automatic press: 24 to 26 second cycle (roughly 140 records per hour), one operator running up to four presses, 7"/10"/12" up to 200 g, about 3.25 m² per press. Each press has 25 kW installed electrical power and consumes per cycle roughly 1.2 kg of steam, 12.5 L of chilled water in a closed platen circuit (compatible with the zero-discharge goal), and compressed air. Deepgrooves in the Netherlands runs its AD12 steam from wood-fired biomass boilers, a working precedent for the renewable-steam question. Pheenix also offers the AD12 Manual, a semi-automatic press on the same platform aimed at splatter and short runs, which makes them a possible single-vendor alternative covering both halves of the 50/50 fleet; that option should be weighed against the Newbilt plan on price, spares, and support.