Hi folks, Here is some more info on the old Victor coarse-groove LP records:
Victor placed a full page on page 1 of the December 1931 Popular Science Monthly magazine. The caption said: "Now.....from "Radio Headquarters", the amazing Radio- Phonograph that plays the New 30-Minute Records". Shown in the ad was a picture of the newly released 12" LP: Beethoven's 5th symphony, performed by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra.. It was shown, in playing position on the new RAE-26 radio-phono. The text of the ad talks about 15 minutes of play time on each side of a 12" record. My copy of the Beethoven 12" record (# L7001) has 3 1/8" of recorded wax on each side. Each side plays for 15 1/2 minutes. The calculated number of grooves/inch comes out at 165. L7001 is one of the few classical coarse-groove LP records that were recorded for the purpose, not dubbed. Most were dubbed. The (I think) 1931 Victor catalog has 3 2/3 pages devoted to LP records, the catalog copyrighted in 1934 has 5+ pages, the catalog copyrighted in 1936 has 3, and the catalog copyrighted in 1940 has 1/3 of a page of mostly organ music, oriented to funeral parlors. An interesting "stereo creation" of some of Duke Ellington's mono performances recorded on coarse-groove LP, made in 1932, was made after the discovery that the performances were recorded simultaneously on two different lathes, fed from two different microphones. A clever individual (I believe his name was Mark Tucker) had the opportunity to audition two recordings that seemed to be of identical performances, but had subtle differences in sound. Careful synchronization and matching of playback speeds yielded a "stereo" left and right track. These stereo creations were released on the LP label Everybody's as # 3005, by Marlor Productions, Hicksville. NY 11802. Best regards, Ben H. Tongue
