What is the earliest "Stereo" record, LP or 45 you own?

I'd have to look, but I'm guessing maybe Persuasive Percussion or else some classical on Command.
 
I also got a Enoch Light "Provocative Percussion" new as released. Another one I remember was the "Pass in Review" by London in some special panning stereo setup.
Another was an Audio Fidelity "Dixieland Jazz" something or other. Maybe also a stereo of Billy Vaughn standards in stereo on maybe "DOT". Also were the "Brave Bulls" in stereo, I believe.
All of these bought new when released in the late 50's. Of course there were a ton of panning affect, ping pong, trains and drag racing LP's in stereo. I know RCA, Liberty, and others released in late 50's. I even have some from then. Real music and classical took time to get it right and they were much later. Rock and jazz came soon after that. Being a student with limited funds and only in mono with a stereo cartridge I would play the stereo LP on one channel only and listen to hear echoes or other sound coming from the other channel. Very exciting for me. Once I hit a big load by working(while in high school) at a juke box record and parts distributor warehouse for a time and they gave me some 7" 45's in stereo. Some Playboy jazz and a few other 7" 45's in stereo. I still have those as they are indestructible.
 
"Railroad Sounds Steam and Diesel. The Sounds of a Vanishing Era". Audio Fidelity Stereodisc AFSD 5843.
 
I own LSC-1806, the Reiner performance of Also Sprach Zarathrustra, which was the very first Living Stereo. The first batch of RCA stereo classical records supposedly came out in time for Christmas of 1958.
 
A Cook Labs "Binaural" 10-inch demo Lp, circa mid-1950's. Two bands on each side, to be played by two cartridges on a two-headed tonearm. Emory Cook called them binaural, but the micing was really what we now call stereo.
 
I would say a lot of records from 1905

Oh looking at the title you said stereo.

Well stereo wasn't really being put to disc for the general public till 1957. I have records from then and Living Stereo titles so lets say 1957.
 
Last edited:
Stan Kenton ‎– Kenton In Stereo. lol... kinda obvious.
Some off the songs were recorded on February 11-12, 1956, but doesn’t say when the album was released. I have a bunch more from that time period that I need to check out.

EDIT: If you go by the catalog number, this Reissue falls between 1957 - 1958.

Stan-Kenton_In-Stereo.jpg
 
Last edited:
Stan Kenton in Hi-Fi. Recorded in Hollywood, 1956.
Stan Kenton Encores. Duophonic ST 1034, recorded in 1945 - 1947.

"Duophonic is a term used to refer to a sound process by which a monaural recording is reprocessed into a kind of "fake stereo". - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duophonic

I haven't taken photos of the covers. I have some Woody Herman, Erroll Gardner and others that go back that far too.

I listened to the Duophonic album and it's sound good and kinda cool, but it doesn't have that true stereo separation.
 
Last edited:
The oldest stereo record I have is a Mercury, Big Band Bossa Nova - 1962, and it's an original, not a later repressing. I think I even got this one sealed/NOS IIRC.

R-898893-1170670017.jpeg.jpg


Regardless, it's an excellent album.
 
Early stereo experiments were done by Bell Labs in the '30s, and even the Germans (who also invented magnetic tape recording) experimented with stereo recording during WWII; there is a stereo recording of a Berlin concert of Wagner in early 1945 in which nearby bombs and explosions outside are audible!

Around 1952, Emory Cook devised a wacky 2-tonearm contraption called "binaural," which had some obvious problems and limitations:

livingston.jpg


Commercial stereo tapes and playback decks were available for sale as early as 1956, but that was strictly for the wealthy. I have a hifi buying guide from the same year that mentions that some big city radio stations were experimenting with stereo broadcasts, with one channel on FM and the other channel on AM, requiring two radios for stereo listening! The belief at that time was, as long as the FM receiver was "hifi" (= audiophile-quality, c.1956), it was OK for the other channel to be in lofi AM on tabletop radio.

Stan Kenton ‎– Kenton In Stereo. lol... kinda obvious.
Some off the songs were recorded on February 11-12, 1956, but doesn’t say when the album was released. I have a bunch more from that time period that I need to check out.

View attachment 897771

That's a later pressing, from the '60s or possibly '70s, and almost certainly recorded by/for Capitol.

It's interesting to note that some labels - including Atlantic, Contemporary, Mercury, Columbia, and I guess Capitol - had installed 2- and 3-track machines in their studios several years prior to the commercial introduction of stereo LPs in early 1958. Some of these pre-1958 recordings were reissued in true stereo soon after the introduction of the stereo LP, but some were never remixed in stereo until the CD era!

Until the early '60s, many studios utilized separate recording chains for stereo and mono. Columbia NY split the mic signals to different consoles in different rooms(!), one feeding a 3-track and one going direct to mono. There is a Thelonious Monk album on Riverside ("Monk's Music"), recorded in 1957, in which the mono version was done in the standard way (mics on each instrument) and experimental stereo version was done by hanging two mics from the ceiling. The mono sounds more cohesive, but the stereo has incredible spaciousness, although the distant mics did a poor job of picking up the acoustic bass.

Stereo was the hot new thing in 1958-1960, and there was a rush to get product out to the market. (Remember: stereo LPs cost $1.00 more than mono, so the profit margin was presumably higher!) It was also not uncommon around 1959 for some labels (most notably Liberty and Capitol) to send their top-selling artists back into the studio re-record their biggest mono hit albums in stereo. For example, the stereo pressings of Martin Denny's "Exotica" and June Christy's "Something Cool" contain completely different performances from the mono pressings, and were recorded several years after the mono!
 
Last edited:
Around 1952, Emory Cook devised a wacky 2-tonearm contraption called "binaural," which had some obvious problems and limitations:

livingston.jpg

A demonstration of one of those crazy contraptions in use:


I have a hifi buying guide from the same year that mentions that some big city radio stations were experimenting with stereo broadcasts, with one channel on FM and the other channel on AM, requiring two radios for stereo listening! The belief at that time was, as long as the FM receiver was "hifi" (= audiophile-quality, c.1956), it was OK for the other channel to be in lofi AM on tabletop radio.
They also sold receivers with two independent tuners for AM and FM to listen to those stereo broadcasts. The AM side was designed with improved frequency response (up to at least 10 kHz) so it would be a better match for the FM side.
 
Oistrakh/Yampolski Encores, I believe it's 1957. I have several that are from 58-60, it's hard to know which are first as specific release date is hard to find.
 
Last edited:
Stan Kenton's - Milestones. Capitol T190, 1955
Stan Kenton ‎– Lush Interlude. Capitol ST-1130, 1959

Stan Kenton ‎– Stan Kenton Encores. Capitol Reissue, ST1034
If you go by the catalog number, this one falls between 1957 - 1958.
 
Back
Top Bottom