78 rpm listening habits.

One thing I like about AK: every time I think I'm the nutcase messing around with outdated audio formats, I run in to something like this threat :rflmao:You guys.. Well I have considered buying 78's once or twice, when an interesting deal passed by actually. That strange pull..
 
When my dear, late father got out of the Army after WWII, he bought quite a few late forties 78s and I, of course, discovered them and played them on what would be called standard record players and they sounded like...well... 78s. I have always wished he would have kept them away from me until I was older because I broke some of them when I was 3 - 4 years old. He would never have done that, however. He was too good a father/person to do that.

One of the albums I absolutely loved is a Glenn Miller "Smart Set" (there were more than one version released with different songs in the different versions) with several of the big hits on it. These were sets RCA released when there was a songwriters strike back then. Unfortunately, most of them in that set are cracked or broken but the remaining ones sound fantastic.

Anyway, it wasn't until years later that I bought a Dual 1019 and Shure M78 cartridge and played those same records through my good system, that I found how wonderful those records sound, in spite of less-than-ideal handling, years before, by me as a child.

He even bought the RCA "Deluxe Red Seal" edition of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" on clear red vinyl and the surfaces are pretty much as quiet as a 33 1/3 RPM LP.

Doug
 
Doug G. said:
When my dear, late father got out of the Army after WWII, he bought quite a few late forties 78s and I, of course, discovered them and played them on what would be called standard record players and they sounded like...well... 78s. I have always wished he would have kept them away from me until I was older because I broke some of them when I was 3 - 4 years old. He would never have done that, however. He was too good a father/person to do that.

One of the albums I absolutely loved is a Glenn Miller "Smart Set" (there were more than one version released with different songs in the different versions) with several of the big hits on it. These were sets RCA released when there was a songwriters strike back then. Unfortunately, most of them in that set are cracked or broken but the remaining ones sound fantastic.

Anyway, it wasn't until years later that I bought a Dual 1019 and Shure M78 cartridge and played those same records through my good system, that I found how wonderful those records sound, in spite of less-than-ideal handling, years before, by me as a child.

He even bought the RCA "Deluxe Red Seal" edition of "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" on clear red vinyl and the surfaces are pretty much as quiet as a 33 1/3 RPM LP.

Doug
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I use a Dual 1019 and Shure M 44-7 with N 44-3 stylus (Pfanstiehl copy) . I use that for most post 1932 78 RPM discs.
 
Steve Hoffman (I can't locate the thread anymore) once said you cannot match the presence of a 78. I have a set with the soundtrack to South Pacific and it's very nice to listen to. It seems that they now want stupid prices for 78s in antique malls when it used to be you could grab a crate of them for a dollar.
 
wd40addict said:
It's not as bad as it seems since the record lands on a cushion of air. I still probably wouldn't stack my rarest discs, but for the others it allows you to assemble a 'playlist' :)
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Then again, have you seen or used the first changers designed for electrically recorded records in the late 1920s (not for later 1940s or 1950s records)?
 
Seen yes, used no. My comment was based more around the post war machines.

A friend had the first HMV model with an electronic amplifier, it also featured a fearsome looking early autochanger which threw the played disc off the platter. Sadly it had amplifier issues and I never saw it working :(
 
I grew up with an old V-M Tri-O-Matic changer that my parents relegated to the basement after getting a Collaro Conquest for the system in the living room. I used to play all their 78s on it and never saw one break or be damaged from the changer mechanism.
 
I used to play the 78's, mentioned in my post, on a circa 1961 - '62 VM changer and, even though the records hitting the vinyl-covered platter was pretty scary sounding, none of the records broke playing them that way. They broke by me handling them in the way a 3 - 4 year old would handle them, years before that. It's not that I was real rough with them, it's just that, at that age, one doesn't have a grasp on the brittleness of shellac records and that they ARE breakable.

Actually, I recently bought a VM model 1260 record player with a model 1210B changer in it (just to refresh my memory of what a typical record player sounded like, back then) and, even though it may be expected that maybe the records have become even more brittle over the last 60 years, they STILL don't break when they drop from the spindle shelf to the "plate" as we called the platter, back then.

Doug
 
I play my 78s a couple of times a week on a Music Hall MMF 5 that is modified for 78 RPM with a mono AT cart with a 78 stylist into a Realist mono tube amp (Grommes LG) and out to a single Bozak coaxial speaker in an infinite baffle. Great fun!
 
Aerobat said:
Steve Hoffman (I can't locate the thread anymore) once said you cannot match the presence of a 78. I have a set with the soundtrack to South Pacific and it's very nice to listen to. It seems that they now want stupid prices for 78s in antique malls when it used to be you could grab a crate of them for a dollar.
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At least for those of us who listen to classical recordings there is also the draw that a performance on 78 is truly a single performance—no cutting and splicing of phrases or single notes to create an artificial performance.
 
An old Newcomb classroom record-player is my go-to for casual 78 playback. It's got an Astatic 89T flip-over stylus that feeds a small tube amp and powers a big ol' paper cone full-ranger that just pounds out the music. Best of all, it's completely manual, so there's no risk of damage from a stacker or the auto-stop getting triggered by long-records. I do own a proper 78RPM stylus for the Audio Technica cartridge on my Dual 1219, but I only ever use it for archiving rare records or listening to exceptionally good 78's on my main system. I also own a Victor VV 4-7 Victrola, but it's mostly a decoration as the soundbox needs rebuilding (Victor made the lovely decision of making the soundboxes out of pot metal, which likes to swell and crack over time). One of these days, I'll get it restored.
 
I play 78s about 10 times per month. I use either a Garrard Model 50 or AT6. I use a GE VRII Golden Treasure cartridge with a T-bar to switch to a 3 mil stylus. 10” and 12” 78s. I use a modified cheap phono preamp that allows EQ customizing. Very enjoyable, and keeps my Garrards in great shape by playing the faster speed.
 
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