The LP turns 65

[fybush]

The concept of "hi-fi" was really, in many ways, a product of the LP. Yes, there were certainly big consoles in the 78 era that incorporated a turntable and a radio and in some cases even a wire recorder or early tape recorder, and it must have been frustrating to have bought one of those for big $ right after the war, only to have the turntable instantly obsoleted...but it was really after the LP hit the market that the idea of "home hi-fi" became a big deal. "Audio" magazine began publication in 1947 (but was more of an engineering trade publication until shifting focus to consumers circa 1954), "High Fidelity" first published in 1951 and "Stereo Review" magazine (now "Sound & Vision" and the sole survivor of the three) dates to 1958.

The state of the art advanced so quickly through the 1950s that a serious hi-fi aficionado would have upgraded somewhere along the way no matter what. The real losers at the time, perhaps, might have been the people building homes during the concurrent suburban housing boom and installing very expensive built-ins. So much of that stuff (not just turntables but also TVs) went through such fast upgrade cycles that it must have stranded a lot of built-in gear. (Sort of like building a fancy house in 1997 and crafting a built-in to fit a state-of-the-art 32" CRT. I know people who did that and had cause to regret it badly within just a few years. And I'm sure someday I'll have cause to regret having designed a new family room in 2007 with just the right layout for a 55" flatscreen. I think I've built in a fair amount of flexibility, but technology will find a way to surprise me, no doubt.)

 

[Savage]

The hi-fi movement actually started with military personnel during WW2. British naval intelligence recruited audio experts because they needed a recording system which was wide-band enough to capture low-frequence noise produced by submarines. The result was a player-record system launched by London (British Decca) during the war called FFrr (for Full Frequency Range Reproduction; one set of the initials was in upper case and the other, lower - I may have reversed them.) ffRR/FFrr yielded high-frequency response to 8000 Hz on a standard 78 rpm disc, versus about 4500 Hz on typical commercial 78s of the era. London/Decca marketed a portable player called The Piccadilly which not only sold for a fraction of the cost of big clunky American radio-phono "combinations" back then, it vastly outperformed them.

Then the Germans devised Magnetophon, the magnetic tape recorder, affording very low-noise wide range recording which was hugely preferable to American disc recording. The medium could be re-used and the sound was comparatively excellent without the problems of changing linear velocity and bandwidth. Plus there was no waste material to dispose of.

The combination of these two developments in the service helped launch hi-fi.

 

[Savage]

The rationale for outside-in and inside-out recording on ETs (electrical transcriptions) was the poorer high-frequency response towards the center of the disc (Scottso Fybush accurately describes how the linear velocity of the groove under the cutting or reproducing stylii slows with smaller diameter of the inner groove.) Recall that a 16-inch ET with typical cutting pitch (number of lines per inch) would play for about 15 minutes per side (ETs were NOT microgroove; they had a 3-mil groove just like 78s.) So to record a full 30-minute radio show, two sides were necessary, on two sides which were not flipsides of the same record. If the first side was recorded outside-in and the second was outside-in as well, the listeners would instantly hear the change in audio quality when the first side ended and the second side began. So the usual practice was to record the first 15 minutes O-I and the ending half I-O to obviate the quality issue.

 

[Savage]

"No dubbing" was a frequent caveat on agency ETs, and playing spots directly off ET was commonplace at all but the biggest stations until the mid- to late 60s. The reason was, cart equipment really wasn't the (relatively) reliable gear most of today's experienced radio folks recall until around 1970 or so. Early cart machines had belt-driven transports which tended to run off speed. Carts tended to be lossy with both high and low frequencies. I have an aircheck of the first weekend of WOR-FM in 1966 and the carts sounded HORRIBLE on FM. Agencies didn't like spending stacks o' cash producing elaborate spots for Pepsi, Heaven Scent, Coke, cars and so forth, and having them sound like crap played on wobbly, fluttery carts.

I started in radio in April 1967, and as in most small-market stations of the era, there was a large wooden ET rack behind the jock with sponsor ETs filed alphabetically. We had two first-generation Spotmaster playback machines, but they were mostly used for station elements like opens/closes, signon-signoff, jingles, etc. Very few spots were on cart. I doubt there were more than forty carts in the entire station. Spots were played off ETs, and there were a LOT of "live read" commercials. In fact it was common for you to find a spot logged "live" and turn to the client's page in the "daybook" to find a newspaper ad taped to a blank page...you AD-LIBBED the spot from the print ad (checking the sweep-second hand clock to make sure it timed to :60 or :30!) We also played spots off 5-inch reels which were stored alphabetically on a pegboard. The reels were edited with white leader tape at the beginning so it wasn't necessary to cue them. You just positioned the beginning of the magnetic section over the playback head; then it was ready to roll.

 

[amfmsw]

The link to how the records got their speeds is interesting. However, the 45 may only be partially correct.

We all know how much William Pailey (CBS) and David Sarnoff hated each other. Sarnoff was infuriated Columbia beat him to market with the improvement on LP. He pushed his engineers to get that new disc to market. The calculus of ending the cutting 1/2 way from the start of the disc to reduce distortion makes total sense. The speed of 45 rpm however has nothing to do with it. What difference would that make? RCA already stepped over the patent line by copying the microgroove, they wouldn't dare copy the same 33 1/3 rpm speed, although THAT would really cut down on distortion, clipping, and extend recording time. no?

The speed of 45 as told to me by oldtimers from the Camden Works was simply: 78-33rpm. 45.Make the speed and large hole so it's not compatible with anything. Sell our RCA artists and we'll sell a million new 45rpm Players by putting "RCA Inputs" on table radios and TV's

 

[Savage]

The oft-repeated folklore about the origins of the 45 surfaces once again. The system's concept and development actually had nothing to do with introduction of the LP. The 45 was developed by RCA during 1939 to 1942, with a prototype almost identical to the production RP-168 changer presented to RCA Victor's Home Instruments Division by company inventor Ben Carlson (not the guy who dissed Obama) during WW2 and thus long predating Columbia's LP. The LP was created by CBS Labs' Peter Goldmark 1947-48 and he had a lot of problems getting it to work, evenually having to "borrow" technology from GE engineers including Bill Bachmann. The 1-mil groove was employed by the 45 system from its early-40s beginnings in order to provide the equivalent playing time to a 12-inch 78 on one side of a 45, about 5:20. Thus this groove dimnension was stolen by CBS from RCA, not the other way around.

The 45 came about when phonograph records were enjoying exponential sales growth in the period 1936-1939, but the 78 rpm record, never designed to formal industrial specs, was being mangled by then-prevalent automatic changers. Because the slicer and platform-type changers regularly cracked, chipped and broke out the center holes of the brittle and heavy 78s, they generated the most complaints to RCA's manufacturing people. RCA Victor chief Thomas Joyce was tasked by Sarnoff in 1939 to develop a combination radio, phonograph and TV of a size appropriate for the typical American living room, and to come up with a fast-acting reliable record changer that wouldn't damage the records. Carlson responded that the only way to accomplish that would be to redesign the record as well. That launched the development of the unbreakable vinyl compact 45, which got shelved during WW2 and then tabled in the postwar rush to get popularly-priced TV receivers to market. It came out of mothballs in 1948-49 when the rivalry between CBS' Bill Paley and David Sarnoff boiled over, sparked by Paley's successful overtures to NBC contract radio stars like Jack Benny and Gosden and Coryell (Amos n' Andy.)

 

[amfmsw]

Savage, Thanks for 'filling in the hole'. (pun intended). Makes perfect sense.

The speed story of 7" 45 (78-33) was told to me some 25 years ago by my then 86 year-old neighbor who worked for RCA Victor beginning in 1931.

 

[Savage]

The legend that an angry David Sarnoff ordered his engineers to come up with a record player system in retaliation for Columbia's LP, and to make sure it was incompatible - hence the large center hole - is just that. It's just not true. The large center hole in 45s, like many aspects of the 45 rpm system, had valid engineering behind it and in any event had existed as a design fait accompli years before the LP was even dreamed of.

Bear in mind that when the 45 was first proposed around 1940, listening to, say, a symphony on phonograph records required loading a 6 pound stack of fragile shellac 78s onto a complex and cranky record changer. The operator had to adjust either slicer or pusher/nodder platforms to the edges of the record stack and with some brands, make adjustments to the pickup arm as well. It was also wise to hand-check the support platforms to make sure jamming wouldn't occur before hitting the "on" switch - or you'd run the risk of the changer's breaking one of the 12-inch 78s.

Ben Carlson's mandate in designing the 45 system was starkly simple - even a child had to be able to load a full stack of records on the new changer and set it in motion with one hand, even in the dark. If you think about the iconic RCA Victor 45 rpm changers of the 1950s it's obvious they were successful doing this. Period ads show kids and women using their smaller hands to play the simple device.

In contrast to the 78 changers which had various mechanisms scattered around the turntable to act directly on the record surfaces, the 45 was designed with the support and changing mechanism relocated to a large center spindle, the only reason for the large hole. Thinner compact records allowed the use of relatively expensive vinylite to replace the fragile shellac. The 45 speed was chosen as optimum for reducing tracing distortion on the inner diameter grooves and to assure fast record changing, within two revolutions of the turntable, or about four seconds. In order to eliminate changer damage to records familiar with 78 devices, Carlson insisted that the 45 changer design could have no contact with any playing surfaces; thus the center spindle rotates along with the turntable and record stack and the only changer part that contacts the actual groove is the pickup stylus.

It's doubtful Sarnoff knew anything about the actual specs of the 45 records or players until they were more or less developed by Carlson's team, and again, at the latest this would have been 1942. It is true that the RCA chief ordered the 45 brought out of mothballs in 1948 after CBS launched the LP, but the real impetus was equal parts anger over Bill Paley's talent raids and warnings which came from Sarnoff's brother.

Irving Sarnoff owned RCA Victor's largest consumer device distributor in NYC. He advised his brother that RCA had built and stocked a postwar inventory of combination sets incorporating radio, Eyewitness Television and in many sets, a 78 rpm record changer. Irving warned that Columbia's new LP would make these sets look dated and "yesterday's news." So the 45 was hastily brought to market and many thousands of the existing combinations were retrofitted with a SECOND changer for the 45 rpm records. This explains the oddity of why RCA sets of the era 1948-52 had two record changers, one for 78 and one for 45 - but no 33 1/3 capability!

 

[joeybabe25]

I recall using ET's in the early 1960's but we would dub them to tape. However, in 1965 looking thru the showcase KCBQ studio in San Diego I noted the jock playing a spot off of an ET directly.

I remember an old time morning man telling me in the mid 70's that until about then all the spots were played by an engineer either on et or rell tape. Yee-Gads! And this the biggest station in town.

Joe

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I remember an old time morning man telling me in the mid 70's that until about then all the spots were played by an engineer either on et or rell tape. Yee-Gads! And this the biggest station in town.

Yes, and the key word there would be the BIGGEST station in town. They had the audience and the revenue, and in some cases, maybe a union contract.

In the late 50s and the 60s I worked for several different stations, and I went on "busman's holidays" on my days off where I would visit other folks stations. I was in at least 300 different stations. Board Operator in control room with Announcer in Studio was a rare bird. BIG stations. One station where I worked still had the copy stand and boom mic from that era. I am told that when that paradigm was at work, you STOOD to read your copy, and you wore a tie!

If you are thinking it was the LITTLE stations that couldn't or wouldn't buy the equipment to equip for combo operators, even without a corporate bean counter, little station owners could calculate on the back of an envelope how quickly they could pay for tape machines and then cart machines if it mean reducing manpower by one person per shift.

Big stations in the city with ad agencies looking over their shoulder and sending them those ETs were hesitant to be the first to mess with the system. Loosing one BIG account because an ad agency felt you had lost your "class" by going combo would cost more than the extra manpower.

 

[Savage]

In many stations up until the late 1960s, you would find three turntables in the control room....some even had four. In some instances you'd have 12-inch turntables which the jock would use to play the latest singles, with at least one 16-incher for ETs, long-form programs and spots.

 

[davideduardo]

"No dubbing" was a frequent caveat on agency ETs, and playing spots directly off ET was commonplace at all but the biggest stations until the mid- to late 60s. The reason was, cart equipment really wasn't the (relatively) reliable gear most of today's experienced radio folks recall until around 1970 or so. Early cart machines had belt-driven transports which tended to run off speed.

The cart machines of the 1963-64 period, including Gates' Cartritape II, as well as the SpotMaster, Collins and others all used direct capstan drive hysterisis/synchronous motors. There were both "insert to load" and "engage to load" (Viking decks) models, and none used belts.

The electronics on the machines available in the mid-60's were certainly state of the art, with response very compatible with AM systems in general.

An ET played 10 times with a worn stylus sounded a lot worse than a cart.

Carts tended to be lossy with both high and low frequencies.

Properly maintained, with well aligned heads, a cart machine was much better sounding than worn transcriptions. At my internship at a 5 station group in 1963, we had everything on cart, from music to newscasts and commercials. The stations sounded much better than several of the competitors who ran music from 45's (nobody in that bigger-than-New-York-City market used ETs for commercials).

Look at the Spotmaster 505 series specs at page 8 at http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Spotmaster-Collection-60s.pdf.

Down 2 db 50 Hz to 12 kHz, low flutter and low distortion. Not bad compared to the rumble on transcription turntables.

I started in radio in April 1967, and as in most small-market stations of the era, there was a large wooden ET rack behind the jock with sponsor ETs filed alphabetically. We had two first-generation Spotmaster playback machines, but they were mostly used for station elements like opens/closes, signon-signoff, jingles, etc. Very few spots were on cart.

I began in 1959; by 1960 our AM, WJMO, had early tube-model Spotmasters for all spots. The FM, which ran 5 PM to 11 PM, M-Sat, did not get carts until 1963 and ran spots off an old Maggie. But since there were whole days with no spots, that was not a burde.

I built the first station I owned, in 1964, from ground up based on carts. Agencies like McCann and J. Walter Thompson had "play from the ET" dictates. In both cases, I gave a demonstration of a well played ET vs. a cart dub, and the dictate fell instantly.

Interestingly, the ET's we got almost always had the same cut recorded four or five times with instructions "use cut 1 in week one, cut two in week two..." so that the worn cut would not be played for more than a week. They sent new ETs each month if the spot ran often, too.

 

[davideduardo]

As a follow up, here is a very informative document from one of the SBE Chapters prepared on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Cart Machine.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/SBE-1959-History-of-Cart-Machine.pdf

 

[Savage]

That's funny - I changed the belts on several machines using the Viking decks which were the most popularly-priced cart machines at smaller stations. Tapecaster, Spotmaster and some Sparta decks used this transport. ATC and Collins or Gates-badged ATC transports were much more expensive and had more robust drive systems.

It was general knowledge at smaller-market stations that the cheaper machines had problems pulling carts with more than three or four minutes of tape in them. The decks in smaller stations weren't routinely cleaned, so pinch-roller slippage and stretched belts could cause wow, flutter and off-speed operation. In the late 60s the majority of stations typically had one part-time engineer, who might be a power company or local TV repairman, who happened to have the required First Phone ticket. Maintaining cart machines was a low priority. YMMV, but my experience was that the concerns over poor audio from carts in PRACTICE (as opposed to factory spec sheets) caused the no-dub rules from agencies regarding ETs. There was a reason why the advertisers didn't want their spots carted. They didn't just issue the request because it was a slow day in the transcription department.

Of course ETs could get worn or scratched. That's why the standard practice was to cut a number of identical 60s and 30s on each side. When one got worn or scratched the station would typically mark that cut with a grease-pencil "X," write NO on that cut or put a piece of colored tape over it. If you played a nasty cut you usually got yelled at. Common sense... :

 

[davideduardo]

That's funny - I changed the belts on several machines using the Viking decks which were the most popularly-priced cart machines at smaller stations. Tapecaster, Spotmaster and some Sparta decks used this transport. ATC and Collins or Gates-badged ATC transports were much more expensive and had more robust drive systems.

Only the first Spotmasters had belt drives. The 500 and 505 series had a direct "capstan shaft" and, unless I missed a model, Paul Shore's Tapecasters always had direct drive motors. I had something like 40 Tapecasters and enough parts to build a couple more back in the mid to late 60's.

It was general knowledge at smaller-market stations that the cheaper machines had problems pulling carts with more than three or four minutes of tape in them. The decks in smaller stations weren't routinely cleaned, so pinch-roller slippage and stretched belts could cause wow, flutter and off-speed operation.

In my differing experience, if heads and the pinch roller were cleaned a couple of time a day there were no issues until the pinch roller started wearing smooth. So a box of Q-Tips(c) and some cleaning fluid and a note on the logs at 6 AM, Noon, 6 PM and Midnight to "clean heads" was all it took.

Since few songs were over 5 minutes, there was not much issue in pulling carts with more tape. A lot had to do with the winding of the tape, too. If wound too tight, they would bind and the top edge became furled or curled. Taking a couple of turns off the inside of the loop prior to splicing produced the right amount of slack.

YMMV, but my experience was that the concerns over poor audio from carts in PRACTICE (as opposed to factory spec sheets) caused the no-dub rules from agencies regarding ETs.

The no-dub rule predated carts; it came from when stations used reel to reel for spot dubs, back in the 50's when many station reel to reel machines were Wollensaks and such.

Once agencies realized that carts were vastly superior to ETs, they gladly allowed transfers.

As to music, a well carted song tended to make the station sound better. The fidelity was as good as those old VR II GE cartridges most of us used, and if quality control was done, a bit of manual leveling brought up low passages and leveled high peaks so there was more level consistency from cart to cart.

I never heard any evidence that carts sounded worse than agency ETs or 45's... were that not true, I could have saved a lot. Where I was, a $450 Tapecaster ended up being over $1,000 with shipping and import duties! A really cool Criterion R/P could run $3,500 which was why I only used them in the production rooms and not on air.

 

[Savage]

Very strange. I just wandered back to the shop where there is still, on a dusty shelf, a NOS factory package of Tapecaster drive belts (Viking transports with the later RELEASE yellow button.) We never used these machines on-air; we had one in the sales office for spot auditioning and one that answered the automated weather forecast phone. IIRC each 300-series Tapecaster used 2 or 3 belts. I'll be sure to show your post to them, though, to demonstrate to them that they really don't exist. :

 

[davideduardo]

Very strange. I just wandered back to the shop where there is still, on a dusty shelf, a NOS factory package of Tapecaster drive belts (Viking transports with the later RELEASE yellow button.) We never used these machines on-air; we had one in the sales office for spot auditioning and one that answered the automated weather forecast phone. IIRC each 300-series Tapecaster used 2 or 3 belts. I'll be sure to show your post to them, though, to demonstrate to them that they really don't exist. :

As I said, "unless I missed a model" and obviously there was a very early Tapecaster with belts.

I started buying them in 1965, and none had belts. That was the 700-P and 700-RP series, the one that most of us are familiar with. There were a couple of earlier models that I never saw and I know of nobody who did see them... they may have used the belt-driven Viking deck.

The main expendables for those units were the little springs that go on the solenoid "engage" lever, pinch rollers and heads. In an environment where power company frequency stability was poor, the motors would also go on occasion.

The fact remains that most cart machines were direct driven, had pretty good audio quality and if the mechanics were regularly cleaned, fairly reliable given the heavy duty they underwent at most 60's radio formats.

The Criterion cart machines, with the electronics in stainless steel encased octal socketed modules, had magnificent audio quality and were very, very solid.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

Only the first Spotmasters had belt drives. The 500 and 505 series had a direct "capstan shaft" and, unless I missed a model, Paul Shore's Tapecasters always had direct drive motors. I had something like 40 Tapecasters and enough parts to build a couple more back in the mid to late 60's.

I may have to disagree with you, but I think all of the Spotmaster 500 and 505 series were belt driven.

At one location, we had about five or six rack mounted Spotmaster 500s and part of our regular maintenance procedures, after cleaning the heads, was to use the General Radio Stroboscope and check the speed of the capstan flywheel. If the speed was off, it meant the two belts were stretching under load and the speed was off. Belts were cheap and we replaced them.

If memory serves me correctly, any of the machines which used the cocking lever of the Viking style decks, they were always a belt drive system.

 

[davideduardo]

I may have to disagree with you, but I think all of the Spotmaster 500 and 505 series were belt driven.

Could the model have changed during its lifetime? If you look at the brochures at the link below, it appears that there was an early design of the 500 / 505 (they don't look like the ones I knew)

I had several of the rack mount ones at HCFV, and they were direct drive. I never ever even saw a belt drive one (which apparently was a stroke of good luck) anywhere.

If memory serves me correctly, any of the machines which used the cocking lever of the Viking style decks, they were always a belt drive system.

I don't think so. I had around 40 of the Tapecaster 700 series, and a few Spotmaster 505s and none had belt drives, and all used Viking or Viking type decks. Since I, unfortunately, did the maintenance, I would have remembered... particularly since parts had to be imported, including detailed permits and paperwork and consular invoices.

I think it was the 300 series that may have been belt-driven.

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Spotmaster-Collection-60s.pdf

 

[RadioFan2J3]

David, I looked over every page of the Spotmaster collection and the best I can tell is that the only reference to a direct drive Spotmaster tape deck is in regards to the Twin/70 series.

Even the Spotmaster Ten Spot and Five Spot appear to have been belt driven: "A flywheel loaded common capstan supplies tape motive force, the flywheel in turnbeing driven by a heavy duty hysteresis synchronous motor."

None of the 400 and 500 series machines, even up through the D series, mention a direct drive capstan, only discussing a hysteresis synchronous motor.

As I think about the Viking decks with the cocking lever to bring up the capstan roller, the swing arm, in the unloaded position, was a very close fit to the capstan flywheel, and if any of those Viking decks were ever fitted with a direct drive capstan motor, I am not sure the swing arm could go back far enough toward the case of a direct drive motor to allow the capstan roller to clear the inside of the cart.

As for the rack mounted 500 series units, I can assure you all the ones we had at VOA C Site indeed had belt drives. Replaced many a belt on those machines.

As for the Tapecaster 700 series, that machine may have had a different loading mechanism, as best as I can tell from the few photos, there might have been two mechanically models under the 700 series.

This photo of a 700-P has the older Viking deck with the cocking lever:

http://wjma.radiohistory.net/WJMA photos/WJMA places/pages/page_27.html

This link has a manual for a 700 series and it sure shows a belt drive:

http://www.1150wima.com/pages/667westmarket/engineering/manuals/700.pdf

Another photo of a 700 series whos a different mechanism, and this version may very well have been a direct drive capstan:

http://www.jimprice.com/prosound/carts.htm


Page 15 of the below link shows the parts of the cocking lever Viking decks which I remember:

http://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Catalogs/Lauderdale_Electronics_Labs-1985.pdf

Could there have been some Spotmaster 500/505 series machines with a newer deck? Maybe, but I never saw them.