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78-rpm records
(Columbia Records' last 78 rpm reissue of Frank Sinatra's "Young at Heart" album was in 1954)
78-rpm record

There are 4 comments for this item.

Posted by Duff at 1:22 pm (PDT) on Fri August 27, 2010   
The 10" 78 rpm record could hold about 3 minutes of music per side. Longer works required multiple discs and a record changer capable of taking a stack of records. If a symphony, say, required 10 records, they'd be arranged for stack playing; the discs would contain sides 1/10, 2/9, 3/8, 4/7, and 5/6, so you could play through the stack and then flip the whole pile over and play the second half. Cumbersome and interrupted as it was, it all worked pretty reliably.
Posted by GlenEllyn at 12:51 pm (PDT) on Sat June 16, 2012   
I remember we had some old 78s but one in particular sticks out because the record itself was red. The song was "Twilight on the Trail" but I don't remember who the artist was. Our 78s were brittle so if you dropped one, it was gone.
Posted by Duff at 6:52 pm (PDT) on Sat June 16, 2012   
I gave my parents a nice Bang and Olufsen stereo system several years ago, but time and a house move took their toll on various components. Just try to find a system nowadays that has inputs for a turntable, CD, cassette, and AM/FM tuner! I did find a TEAC all-in-one unit, but kept the B&O's amplifier and speakers so they can get reasonable sound from it. Anyhow, the T'EAC's turntable plays 33's, 45's, and 78's, so when I visited last week, we got out some of their old novelty and klezmer 78's, and they played just fine. It's a weird feeling, listening to records that are at least 90 years old...
Posted by GlenEllyn at 11:09 pm (PDT) on Sat June 16, 2012   
Duff,
I have a TEAC record player myself. I bought it several years ago just so I could listen to some of the LPs I still have. I didn't spend too much on it so the sound isn't the greatest, but it's so much fun to listen to records again. I especially enjoy a few I have that aren't available on CD. My grandkids, heck, my kids get a kick out of it. I just wish some of my favorite ones hadn't disappeared over the years - I think one of my roommates in the 70s "acquired" them without my knowledge.

Have you noticed that some young people don't know how to treat CDs? They don't seem to understand that you ought to handle them with some care so they don't get scratched - they just toss them anywhere instead of putting them back in the case. It's another skill we boomers learned from having records!

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