Recording on Plastic Plates vs Laquer

[Mud Slide Slim]

I have an Emerson 529 home record cutter, the motor operation seems pretty heavily modeled after a recordio. It has a dual coil shure magnetic cutting cartridge on it (I'm honestly not sure what that would do), which seems a lot better than most of the similar home market record lathes and cutters of the time. I also had a pack of acetate blanks that I was willing to use (I have probably 50 others that I'm hesitant to use since they are all in original packaging and are more directed toward being master laquers, I believe they're the 13 and change size, as well as a pack of 16s which are both useless for that machine. Anyway, the laquer records sound fantastic and dead quiert with a presto sapphire cutting stylus. I got a few different packs of plastic plates to try, though I'm not sure which ones are "right" I had a pack of the Solo ones that seem like same material as red Solo cups, these recorded alright on the matte bottom side, however with fairly low fidelity and high surface noise, which I expect given they're just plastic plates, however it seems like others are getting fairly good cuts on these. I'm wondering what anyone elses' experiences are with that, and what are the "best" plates to use. I'm not too keen on using acetate blanks, given I feel like I'm wasting a limited supply, so I'm hoping for an alternative that I can use for my more casual fooling around that won't destroy the stylus. I do have some laserdiscs I can try, but would be hesitant for that reason.

[piaptk]

Ive used Safeway’s “Signature” brand picnic plates with “good” results. Fidelity was actually very nice, the noise floor was a bearable white noise beneath it. Solo brand plates should give you the same.

Laserdiscs will chew up yr stylus.

[Mud Slide Slim]

I would say I'm getting like a 1 to 1 signal to noise ratio on these, but its probably because I'm recording on the flat finish side instead of the shiny side. The shiny side records weird