For a two-year period from 1948 to 1950, record companies and consumers faced uncertainty over which of these formats would ultimately prevail in what was known as the “War of the Speeds”.Įventually, the 12″ (30 cm) / 33⅓ rpm LP prevailed as the predominant format for musical albums, and the 7″ (17.5 cm) / 45 rpm EP or “single” established a significant niche for shorter duration discs typically containing one song on each side. The commercial rivalry between RCA Victor and Columbia Records led to RCA Victor’s introduction of what it had intended to be a competing vinyl format, the 7″ (17.5 cm) / 45 rpm Extended Play (EP). In 1948, the 12″ (30 cm) Long Play (LP) 33⅓ rpm microgroove record was introduced by the Columbia Record at a dramatic New York press conference. Peter Goldmark and his staff undertook exhaustive efforts to address problems of recording and playing back narrow grooves and developing an inexpensive, reliable consumer playback system. During and after World War II when shellac supplies were extremely limited, some 78 rpm records were pressed in vinyl instead of shellac (wax), particularly the six-minute 12″ (30 cm) 78 rpm records produced by V-Disc for distribution to US troops in World War II.īeginning in 1939, Columbia Records continued development of this technology. However, vinyl’s lower playback noise level than shellac was not forgotten. In Roland Gelatt’s book The Fabulous Phonograph, the author notes that RCA Victor’s early introduction of a long-play disc was a commercial failure for several reasons including the lack of affordable, reliable consumer playback equipment and consumer wariness during the Great Depression. These revolutionary discs were designed for playback at 33⅓ rpm and pressed on a 12″ diameter flexible plastic disc. ![]() In 1950, RCA Victor began issuing vinyl LPs (originally introduced by Columbia Records in 1948), because they were losing artists and sales due to the company's resistance to adopting the new format.In 1930, RCA Victor launched the first commercially-available vinyl long-playing record, marketed as “Program Transcription” discs. The first Red Seal discs recorded by Victor in the United States were of the Australian contralto Ada Crossley on April 30, 1903. ![]() Five of Caruso's Milan records were issued by Victor on the Red Seal label in the United States in March, 1903 and soon other famous opera stars and classical instrumentalists were attracted to the studios of both Victor and the Gramophone Company, consolidating the positions of these firms as the market leaders in the field of serious music by famous artists. Caruso's first records, made by the Gramophone Company in Milan, Italy in 1902, earned prestige as well as profits for the company and its affiliates. Led by the great Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, then just at the beginning of his worldwide fame, Victor Red Seal records changed the public's valuation of recorded music. Later in 1902 the practice was adopted by the home office in the United Kingdom, which preferred to refer to the records as "Red Labels", and by its United States affiliate, the Victor Talking Machine Company, in 1903. ![]() The first "Gramophone Record Red Seal" discs were issued in 1901.
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