I'm going to be playing my 10" LPs today.  I don't have a lot of them.  I wonder how many of them have been thrown out by people who thought they were just old 78s.  They are from the time when microgroove recordings were new to consumers, when not long after the big-hole 45 r.p.m. record was being introduced as the new format for the single two-song record. They discovered you could actually put 4 songs on a 45, creating the EP (extended play) format as well. It had already occurred to them that larger records -- 78s had been offered mainly in 10 and 12-inch formats and radio had even used 16-inch disks -- could now with microgrooves begin to hold whole collections of songs, an album's worth of songs on a single record disk.

A battle began to shape up over which size -- 10 or 12" -- the long play (LP) album would take.  Some record companies and phonograph manufacturers bet on 10-inch, some on 12.  I've forgotten which companies took which side--perhaps someone else knows the story in more detail than I recall and can post more about it here--but I suspect that one of the arguments for the 10" format was that most popular music was in that size, and the majority of phonographs around had 10" turntable platters.  Twelve-inch 78s and the phonographs best designed to play them (though most 10" platter machines could still accommodate 12" records) were mostly used for classical music and other specialty recordings.  In short, 12" connoted the high-falutin', the long-haired fuddy-duddy, the carriage trade.  Just plain folks would want to stay with more compact record players when they bought the new 3-speed models, with flip-over or changable needles, to accommodate 78s, 45s, and the new 33s together.

It was a little like the fight between VHS and Beta-max when consumer video tape formats were first being promoted, though really not quite that serious.  In that case, when VHS prevailed, a lot of people ended up with Beta cassettes that just couldn't be played after their first Beta player crapped out.  Once 12" LPs became the winning LP format, people with 10" LPs could at least still play them.

As many Crosby record collectors know, Bing's first LPs were released in the 10" format.  Many were new microgrove re-releases of Decca's multi-record 78 albums Bing had already made.  There was a time when Bing's 4-record 78 album "Way Back Home", Decca number A-826, was also available as a 2-record (7") 45 album, number 9-204, and also as a 10" LP album, number DL531.  I have the 10" LP version, and it says this right in the upper right corner of the back cover which other formats were available.  Obviously, Decca wanted to make sure that any customers, regardless of their phonographic equipment, were going to be able to listen to that album! 

It is also significant to the Crosby LP collector that soon Bing's albums were being released FIRST on the new 10" LP format, beginning with "Le Bing."  Among these, "Some Fine Old Chestnuts", for example, got a later rerelease on 12" LP when that format prevailed, gaining some "bonus tracks" in the process.  It strikes some of us as strange that "Le Bing" never got a 12" rerelease; in fact it never got any rerelease until well into the next century with the recent CD containing it -- but, oh, the bushel of bonus tracks that format permitted!

It's also important to mention that all of this initial phase of the microgroove revolution happened before stereo.  Stereo arrived near the end of the 1950s. The American manufacturer of phonograph cartridges, Shure, introduced their first magnetic stereo cartridge, the M3D, in 1958.  With stereo there was a small but significant change to the microgroove format, as well. We could call that phase two of the revolution.  Before that time all of the single-channel, or monaural (usually abbreviated "mono"), LPs had been made with 1.0 mil (0.001 inch) grooves [a third of the width of most 78 grooves], but with stereo a slightly narrower groove -- 0.7 mil -- was introduced.  You could play stereo records on a mono record player now only if you upgraded to the 0.7 mil needle.  Stereo LPs from this period include dire warnings not to play them with the old mono needles. It could seriously damage the stereo records if you tried to play them with the over-sized needles.  But once you upgraded, you could play your old mono Lps with the slightly smaller stereo needle and cartridge without causing damage.  Why would you want to do this? Besides not wanting to throw out your old favorite records, a lot of people kept buying mono records, even after they started to buy some stereo records, partly because some recordings were not yet available in stereo or partly because, in those days, stereo records often cost nearly twice what the mono versions of them cost.

In a few years, mono releases were also put out with the 0.7 mil groove, so that second phase of the microgroove revolution is often forgotten.  But, today, the sticklers among old record collectors, will install a 1.0 mil stylus in their phono cartridges when they want to play their early mono records. The records will sound better that way.  That is part of the reason I'm playing my very early mono 10" LPs today.  I have gotten a new phono cartrige and needle combo that I have been trying out. The needle is not a 1.0 mil one, but one designed for the later 0.7 mil groove; however, it sounded extremely good on another very early mono LP yesterday.  Now, I want to see how it sounds with my oldest mono LPs -- these old 10-inchers.  Even though it isn't the perfect size for them, maybe for some reason it will track their grooves better, making them sound better, than the other cartridges I've tried.  It would be good to know if it does, since it will play any of my later mono and stereo records well, too, without having to worry about any needle changes --- not to mention that it is wonderful to hear these old records sound better, more true to what they were made to sound like.

So the 10" Crosby's LPs on the playlist will be:
--Way Back Home
--Der Bingle
--Le Bing
I've also got some Red Nichols, Rosemary Clooney, Benny Goodman, Doris Day...in that format, too.  I'll report back with some listener impressions.  Meanwhile, other members, please jump in and post remembrances of your 10" LP Crosbies, or other things you remember about the techonolgical changes around the dawn of the microgroove record.

Last edited by Steve Fay (20/2/2015 4:51 pm)