RCA had designed the 45rpm to conform to the 78 offering the same playing time, somewhat improved reliability, depicting an unsavoury gain of being "convenient" because the 45rpm discs were smaller The 78s records came in speeds ranging from 68 to 84 rpm. By 1930, speeds had settled to a standard 78 rpm. Well over 40 years ago, recording companies decided give up on making 78s. A standard stylus was 2.5 thousands of an inch, conical tip, that standard only existed for a very short time, when one realise that the very first 78 record came out in the year of 1896 more than 100 years ago. The record grooves was wider than what is classed as standard, about 3 thousands of an inch. Joe public is always the fall guy in nearly all marketing situations being easily deceived. Columbia began making 45s in 1951 ending the one speed and spindle size for popular songs, and another for symphonies. Taking into consideration the whole concept of constant turntable speed thats been obsolete since the turn of the century. At a constant turntable speed, the velocity of the grooves moving past the stylus decreases as the record plays the inner spirals of the track being, of course, much smaller than the outer ones, boundary wise. If the groove speed were held constant instead of the turntable speed in much the same way that a reel of film plays out at a steady 24 frames a second, it would be possible to record over 90 minutes of material on a single side. You'd have superior reliability and a lessened the potential for damage to a vinyl record. A few phonographs designed on this principal were marketed in the early 1900s. Technology and show biz is not the same. For the apparently obvious business-related reason of an imagine, you wonder how much more rubbish an international recording artist would need to pad out in an album with this line of development that was never pursued. |
