The Most Maligned Audio Format
I recently subjected my nearest and dearest to what she
undoubtedly thought were some of the lousiest recordings ever made. They were an atrocious
truckin' song called "Diesel Smoke" by the Sons of the Pioneers, a mediocre
dance-band arrangement of "If I Were a Bell" from the musical "Guys and
Dolls" played by Jan Garber and his Orchestra, and an elevatorish ballad called
"All That I'm Asking is Sympathy" by Henri Rene.
All date from the early '50s, but otherwise have little in
common, at least from an objective point of view. But they were the first three 45-rpm
records I ever bought, and I got them for a nickel each from a remainder table. I didn't
even have anything to play them on, but my buying them was an early manifestation of my
fascination with the 45. By the time I turned to more grownup formats, I had amassed
several thousand of the little black discs.
There was lots of music around my home as I was growing up,
but the recorded variety came entirely from 78s. My parents had a perfectly good 78 record
player, and at that time everything was issued in that format as well as the others, so
they saw no need to upgrade. And in fact, for the first few years of my record-buying
life, I bought 78s as well because that's what I could play; it took me years to replace
most of them in a less fragile format, and some of them were never replaced.
But from the moment I knew they existed, I was fascinated
by 45s. Maybe it's because I thought of 78s as my parents' medium, or maybe even then I
realized that, with all its faults, the new format was vastly superior to the old. It
didn't hurt that I was besotted by everything to do with radio in those days, and that the
45 was the medium of choice for most stations.
As soon as I could, I cajoled my parents into buying me a
three-speed turntable so I could play 45s, and I switched entirely to buying my music in
that format ("Little Darlin' " by the Diamonds was my first "real"
45). The player would handle LPs too, of course, but it was years before I owned one).
The 45 was a powerful symbol of teendom; we were known by
the records we had. I negotiated my way through adolescence mostly on the strength of my
record collection. I carted it about in a special box designed for records that size --
almost everyone had one of those -- and ultimately considered myself a major collector
when I graduated to a double-size box. This portability was also one of the main appeals
of the 45; picking up a stack of fifty 78s is like hefting a concrete block!
It's highly unlikely that any of this teeny-bop connection
could have been foreseen by the people who developed the format in the first place. It was
a deadly serious marketing move developed by hard-nosed businessmen and engineers.
By the end of the Second World War, the noisy, brittle 78
had been standard for half a century, and it was obviously due for an upgrade, especially
as a whole bunch of new materials and techniques had been developed in the industrial
flurry that accompanied the war, at least in the U.S.
The two biggest record companies in the States -- Columbia
and RCA -- turned their respective hands to coming up with something new, and spawned a
major format war.
Their solutions had some things in common. Both used the
much quieter and more durable new plastic, polyvinyl chloride. Both used the same
"microgroove," which allowed far more grooves to be cut onto the record, much
closer together, for increased playing time. And both lengthened playing time further by
using a slower rotation speed.
But their philosophies differed from that point on.
Recorded music had always been marketed a song at a time on single records (with a
throwaway second side), and RCA had no reason to believe that the industry would abandon
that pattern, so it turned its attention to making smaller, better singles. Columbia, on
the other hand, felt that the new technology could be used to fit more music on records of
the old size. In the end, both prevailed, after a fashion, and 45s were still used to
distribute singles -- mostly to kids -- while the LP took the high ground and became the
prime vehicle for the burgeoning world of high fidelity.
And although audio purists looked down their noses at the
humble 45, it was actually a very respectable format technically. The problem is that, if
you go back and listen to your early 45s, they do sound terrible, mainly because they were
mostly played on primitive record players that carved permanent distortion into the
grooves. But the 45 shared the groove geometry of the LP, and had a faster linear speed to
boot, which made it the better potential medium, in theory at least. Unworn 45s could be
the equal of the LP; and the fact that some of the "audiophile" LPs of the '70s
were recorded at 45 rpm tended to vindicate the format.
And there's no doubt about the appeal of buying recordings
a song at a time, rather than picking up an album, only to find you like only one or two
cuts. Like their European and Japanese counterparts years ago, the North American record
companies are beginning to realize the wisdom of the single, and word is that cheap CDs
with only a few songs are going to become much more common. Whether or not this will stem
the tide of Internet downloading of music -- as the record companies hope -- remains to be
seen.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
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