08-28-2021, 07:09 PM
That's correct Ron... and... the speed is 33 1/3, and the "talking record" speed was 16 2/3, or half that speed. I remember the 16 2/3 was used a lot back in the 1950s and 1960s for recording books for the blind. I remember these records in the library, along with special heavy duty type record players.
Most people in this Phorum are too old to remember the big battle between RCA and Columbia over record speeds. Columbia came out with 33 1/3 records just before WW2, but paused their introduction during the war because nobody was making players, all manufacturing had turned to war production. They came back out with them after the war, when consumer production resumed. RCA came out with 45 RPM records right after, which they had been developing just before the war while Columbia was developing the 33 1/3. They claimed, correctly, that the 45 was capable of better fidelity, which it is because the groove vibrations from side to side are longer for a given frequency at the higher RPM. Remember, this was still in the days of monaural records. Anyway, both systems survived. The 33 1/3 became the standard for long playing albums. It was especially good for classical music recordings since they could fit an entire movement of a symphony on one side. RCA did make long playing 45s with microgrooves, but they only lasted 7 1/2 minutes at most per side. RCA even came out with some 45 "albums" with 2 songs on each side of the record, and 2 or 3 records in the box. Eventually the 45 became the standard for "singles" while the 33 1/3 became the standard for albums. My family were quite familiar with all this since my godmother started as a secretary for, and eventually became a vice president of RCA Camden. I still have more than a dozen of the boxed 45 "albums" from those early days.
Most people in this Phorum are too old to remember the big battle between RCA and Columbia over record speeds. Columbia came out with 33 1/3 records just before WW2, but paused their introduction during the war because nobody was making players, all manufacturing had turned to war production. They came back out with them after the war, when consumer production resumed. RCA came out with 45 RPM records right after, which they had been developing just before the war while Columbia was developing the 33 1/3. They claimed, correctly, that the 45 was capable of better fidelity, which it is because the groove vibrations from side to side are longer for a given frequency at the higher RPM. Remember, this was still in the days of monaural records. Anyway, both systems survived. The 33 1/3 became the standard for long playing albums. It was especially good for classical music recordings since they could fit an entire movement of a symphony on one side. RCA did make long playing 45s with microgrooves, but they only lasted 7 1/2 minutes at most per side. RCA even came out with some 45 "albums" with 2 songs on each side of the record, and 2 or 3 records in the box. Eventually the 45 became the standard for "singles" while the 33 1/3 became the standard for albums. My family were quite familiar with all this since my godmother started as a secretary for, and eventually became a vice president of RCA Camden. I still have more than a dozen of the boxed 45 "albums" from those early days.
