10-11-2011, 07:00 PM
Recently, I came across one of Philco's M-15 record players (still in the original box).I already had the identical model but with "Columbia" embossed on it in my collection so I decided to sell it on the bay. With a little research I later found found that this was in fact the very first 33 1/3 LP model ever made!!! As told by Columbia's president Goddard Lieberson, here is Philco's contribution to recording history:
It was decided to have the LP record ready for the fall of 1948. We made a rapid investigation to see whether we could manufacture our own players and very quickly discovered that we had neither the skills nor the time to develop them. Consequently we talked to other manufacturers about making a player. Although several were willing, Philco was chosen to make the first models. I was a little unhappy about this, because I felt that all of the manufacturers should be making a player of some sort-the more players that got on the market, the more records could be sold. Philco did a good job, and it really took some very fancy tricks to develop the player and have it ready to go on the market in such a short space of time. Our engineering group showed them how; in fact all of the basic technology came from Columbia Records. In the field of plastic engineering we had the advantage of having with us Jim Hunter, who had developed Victorlac.
On June 20, 1948, the first public demonstration was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. By this time. Bachman and the rest of the team had managed to lengthen the LP to about twenty-two minutes. As I stepped up to the podium to address the fiftv-odd representatives of the press, on one side of me was a stack of conventional 78-rpm records measuring about eight feet in height and another stack about fifteen inches high of the same recordings on LP. After a short speech I played one of the 78 rpm records for its full length of about four minutes,when it broke, as usual, right in the middle of a movement. Then I took the corresponding LP and played it on the little Philco attachment right past that break. The reception was terrific. The critics were struck not only by the length of the record, but by the quietness of its surfaces and its greatly increased fidelity. They were convinced that a new era had come to the record business. Subsequently, Philco introduced the cheaper M-15 under it's own name later that year....
Note from site admin: Sorry, but the photo which was attached to this post is no longer available.
It was decided to have the LP record ready for the fall of 1948. We made a rapid investigation to see whether we could manufacture our own players and very quickly discovered that we had neither the skills nor the time to develop them. Consequently we talked to other manufacturers about making a player. Although several were willing, Philco was chosen to make the first models. I was a little unhappy about this, because I felt that all of the manufacturers should be making a player of some sort-the more players that got on the market, the more records could be sold. Philco did a good job, and it really took some very fancy tricks to develop the player and have it ready to go on the market in such a short space of time. Our engineering group showed them how; in fact all of the basic technology came from Columbia Records. In the field of plastic engineering we had the advantage of having with us Jim Hunter, who had developed Victorlac.
On June 20, 1948, the first public demonstration was held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. By this time. Bachman and the rest of the team had managed to lengthen the LP to about twenty-two minutes. As I stepped up to the podium to address the fiftv-odd representatives of the press, on one side of me was a stack of conventional 78-rpm records measuring about eight feet in height and another stack about fifteen inches high of the same recordings on LP. After a short speech I played one of the 78 rpm records for its full length of about four minutes,when it broke, as usual, right in the middle of a movement. Then I took the corresponding LP and played it on the little Philco attachment right past that break. The reception was terrific. The critics were struck not only by the length of the record, but by the quietness of its surfaces and its greatly increased fidelity. They were convinced that a new era had come to the record business. Subsequently, Philco introduced the cheaper M-15 under it's own name later that year....
Note from site admin: Sorry, but the photo which was attached to this post is no longer available.
