RCA Victor LP from 1931

[OrthoFan]

As with the Edison Long Playing record, RCA Victor's attempt at marketing the 33 ⅓ (long playing) transcription record to the home market was eventually a failure, or at best, a technology ahead of its time.

I've never come across one, but I spotted this on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD7Jpyc75bI -- which seems to dispel what I've been led to believe--that they didn't have much of a sound quality.

I know that the groove width was by no means "micro-groove", but don't know how wide it was compared to a conventional 78 record. Certainly, the heavy pick-ups then in use did the records no good.

OrthoFan

[Wolfe]

I've never come across one, but I spotted this on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD7Jpyc75bI -- which seems to dispel what I've been led to believe--that they didn't have much of a sound quality.

Doesn't dispel anything for me. That doesn't sound good at all. That record you linked is made from dubs of 78's. Apparently many of these PT's were dubs. This had been discussed on the TMF before. I have a bunch of PT's mostly from one stash that I pickeed up somewhere, about twelve in all. What struck me was how basically noisy they are, even playing with a 1 mil or so stylus. The 'Victrolac' itself was quite noisy. Maybe they had been ruined on some more primitive player back in the day.

[OrthoFan]

Doesn't dispel anything for me. That doesn't sound good at all. That record you linked is made from dubs of 78's. Apparently many of these PT's were dubs. This had been discussed on the TMF before. I have a bunch of PT's mostly from one stash that I pickeed up somewhere, about twelve in all. What struck me was how basically noisy they are, even playing with a 1 mil or so stylus. The 'Victrolac' itself was quite noisy. Maybe they had been ruined on some more primitive player back in the day.

Interesting, on my PC, through the earphones, it sounds about the same as a YouTube video of a conventional 78. Then, I realized that the sound quality I hear may have more to do with my equalizer settings which are set to boost mid-range and bass, and slightly dampen treble. (It took me months to adjust it so I liked it.) As an experiment, I disabled my "Beats" equalizer and I'd agree, it doesn't sound as good as a good-condition, well-recorded 78--from the same era--played on YouTube. Still, I didn't notice a "garbled" sound, which is how some collectors described them to me.

OrthoFan

[gramophone-georg]

I've never come across one, but I spotted this on YouTube -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD7Jpyc75bI -- which seems to dispel what I've been led to believe--that they didn't have much of a sound quality.

Doesn't dispel anything for me. That doesn't sound good at all. That record you linked is made from dubs of 78's. Apparently many of these PT's were dubs. This had been discussed on the TMF before. I have a bunch of PT's mostly from one stash that I pickeed up somewhere, about twelve in all. What struck me was how basically noisy they are, even playing with a 1 mil or so stylus. The 'Victrolac' itself was quite noisy. Maybe they had been ruined on some more primitive player back in the day.

Not all of them were dubs- a lot of the classical pieces were their own recordings. Then, there is the first stereo recording- Duke Ellington's L-16006, where two different takes were recorded from different mikes at the same session... when one is superimposed over the other, it's Duke in stereo.

Most of the fidelity issues were due to the much slower recording speed.

There were two types of these records issued- regular shellac and "VictroLac", which is often mistaken for vinyl but was really a flexible lacquer compound.

THESE are the records that could not withstand constant use with the heavy pick ups of the day. They developed a special "chromium yellow" needle for VictroLac pressings but it didn't help much. I've seen Victrolac used on the 12" classical and semi classical series, but never on the popular 10" series or on any pressing of the 12" Louis Armstrong Hits issue. (Armstrong's has the distinction of being the ONLY 12" popular release in the whole line).

A good way to figure out if the Program Transcription was a dub or not is by seeing if there was also a 78RPM set issue of the same piece. If a 78RPM set exists, the PT is a dub... unless... it was Stokowski, or they cut the Program Transcription AND the 78 RPM sets at the same time- which sometimes happened, but required multiple 78 RPM cutters to keep up with the music.

Lots of good info here:
https://www.stokowski.org/Victor_Progra ... ecords.htm

I have a small collection of about 90 of these records. They are quite a fascinating piece of recording and Victor history.

[gramophone-georg]

Doesn't dispel anything for me. That doesn't sound good at all. That record you linked is made from dubs of 78's. Apparently many of these PT's were dubs. This had been discussed on the TMF before. I have a bunch of PT's mostly from one stash that I pickeed up somewhere, about twelve in all. What struck me was how basically noisy they are, even playing with a 1 mil or so stylus. The 'Victrolac' itself was quite noisy. Maybe they had been ruined on some more primitive player back in the day.

Interesting, on my PC, through the earphones, it sounds about the same as a YouTube video of a conventional 78. Then, I realized that the sound quality I hear may have more to do with my equalizer settings which are set to boost mid-range and bass, and slightly dampen treble. (It took me months to adjust it so I liked it.) As an experiment, I disabled my "Beats" equalizer and I'd agree, it doesn't sound as good as a good-condition, well-recorded 78--from the same era--played on YouTube. Still, I didn't notice a "garbled" sound, which is how some collectors described them to me.

OrthoFan

The only "garbled" sound I have noticed with these is always due to the 33 ⅓ RPM drive mechanism (really a geared speed reducer sort of along the lines of an Edison 2/4 minute feed adapter) on a period Victor machine that's gummed up and in need of oiling.

I do recall, though, a rumor out there that these really were LPs and should be played with an LP stylus, and doing this especially on a STEREO could indeed give it some garble. These really do sound best with the good old 3 mil stylus and a mono switch on more modern equipment.

[OrthoSean]

These really do sound best with the good old 3 mil stylus and a mono switch on more modern equipment.

A standard 3 mil stylus works "ok" on LPs, but really if you have something more like a 2.0 or 2.5, they come to life. I have a little about 60 of them, more than half of which came from the person who bought them new. It really seems to depend on the release date as well, the earliest ones require a larger stylus, the later ones, including the victrolac pressings, do best with a 2.0 or 2.5.

A non-dubbed early LP in nice condition played with a well-fitting stylus will sound much better than you might expect, check out the Ellington disc George mentions above on the Ellington Complete Victor / RCA recording CD series. Astounding fidelity.

Sean

[Phototone]

This was exactly the same technology that was used for Vitaphone sound-on-disc motion picture production. In the restoration of these early talkies (1927-1934 about), sometimes the sound is better on the discs than the optical tracks of the period, if the disc isn't worn.

[Uncle Vanya]

These records CAN sound absolutely spectacular, Reed and Welch notwithstanding.
When one listens to the “Higher Fidelity”. Issues of 1932-1934, whether on standard
Play or on Program Transcription, the company’s assertion in advertising that “from
here on re-recordings will never have to be re-recorded for technical reasons” seems
perfectly reasonable.

https://youtu.be/GppO-LVtttc

Of course, in the late ‘Thirties and early ‘Forties some absolutely horrible stuff was
put out by the company. It reall appears that they were distorting their recording curve
In an effort to make cheap crystal pickups and poorly designed loudspeakers sound bettering.

[drh]

A few--several--well, OK, quite a lot of years ago, I lucked into four of the 12" program transcriptions and paid, I think, either $4 or $8 for the lot. One was Toscanini's PSONY recording of the Haydn "Clock" Sym.; the other three were Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore. Dubs all, of course, but what was exciting was that they came in their original very, very Art Deco sleeves. I've never seen any of those before or since; here's a photo of one. The back is identical to the front.

I have one 10" record from this series, Alfred Cortot playing Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody on one side and Weber's "Invitation to the Waltz" on the other. Each was dubbed from what had been a two-sided standard 78. In each case, the music has a sickening pitch lurch at the point where it passes from what had been conventional side 1 to conventional side 2. I've never checked to see whether that's an artifact of the program transcriptions or characteristic of the originals.

All of which raises a question: how did Victor manage to make clean side joins in these things when magnetic tape was still years in the future?

[Edit] Putting the records away, I noticed one other thing worth mentioning: the records have slightly different style labels. The Haydn's label has little decorative doodads like ribbon ties scattered around the ring at the outside; the G&S have fewer doodads, and they show little hour glasses instead of the ribbons.

[Wolfe]

Side joins were done by dubbing from / bouncing back and forth between two turntables playing the source material. Same thing was done in the early LP era, ca. 1948-49 which was the beginning of the magnetic tape era in the recording studios. Many early RCA Victor LP's from the late 40's are also dubbed from 78's, because they hadn't a backlog of 33 ⅓ rpm transcriptions like rival Columbia had stockpiled.