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Author Topic: LP maximum playing time Michael Schaffer "Where is the Boardwalk Hotel?" Posts: 4143 From: Boston, MA Registered: Apr 2002 posted 03-31-2006 07:52 PM                        What is (or should I say was?) the maximum playing time of one LP side? Obviously, quality deteriorated gradually towards the centre of the LP because of slower groove speeds and of the increasingly steep stylus angle. So, how much playing time could be squeezed from a single side and how much of that time was considered acceptable in sound quality?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 03-31-2006 08:01 PM                     I'm not an expert on this, but from what I have noticed over the years is anything more than 20 minutes would seriously degrade sound quality. 15 minutes is a solid number, 10 minute sides is ideal. I have seen 40 minute per side discs of old radio shows. It works for what it is. I also have a thunderstorm LP that runs 30 minutes a side that sounds amazingly well, but most of the louder thundercrashes are near the beginning. dbx LPs were the BEST!  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 03-31-2006 08:01 PM                     A lot of it depends on how the record was mastered: The most you can get on a record cut using a lacquer master is around 30-35 minutes a side, especially if there is not a lot of bass information in the recording. A record that is direct-metal-mastered (DMM) by virtue of its smaller/thinner groove pitch can put just over 45 minutes an LP side under the same conditions as a lacquer master. DMM recordings, however have been regarded by many as sounding thin and lifeless in comparison to their lacquer counterparts. -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Louis Bornwasser Film God Posts: 4441 From: prospect ky usa Registered: Mar 2005 posted 03-31-2006 08:12 PM                        Amplifying upon Aaron's post: Level, especially l.f. level (Bass) will reduce greatly the playing time. Some low level classical music with extended mid-range only could last as much as 60 minutes or more. I'll bet a silent groove could be up to 85 minutes. Louis  |  IP: Logged Wayne Keyser Master Film Handler Posts: 272 From: Arlington, Virginia, USA Registered: May 2004 posted 03-31-2006 08:26 PM                     I once had an LP (unauthorized "Destination Moon" soundtrack) that ran just about an hour on Side 1.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-01-2006 02:20 AM                     Even Columbia in the mid-50's had their "extended play" LP's with Walter conducting the PSofNY in the performance of the 5th of Beethoven on one side of the vinyl. Stravinsky did his "Rite of Spring with the Columbia Symphony on one side as well in this same time frame...extreme minute grooving due to lowered recording levels... Victor didn't want to get involved with the maximum timing stuff..they wanted as much groove spacing as possible when their "Living Stereo" series were introduced in early 1958. They wanted quality-so 22 minutes where their maximum timing at the time (also the Westrex "45/45" cutters weren't really fine tuned at that time as well as they are now ...).... - Monte  |  IP: Logged Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 04-01-2006 04:30 AM                        As a very rough rule of thumb and on the basis of my collection, I'd say that you'll start to hear a serious loss of HF if the playing time per side goes over 25 minutes. I have one recording of Beethoven's 9th crammed onto a single LP: movements 1,2 and about 5 minutes of movement 3 are on side 1 (around 33 minutes I'd guess) with the rest on side 2. Because the disc is cut so close to the label rim, it needs an extra half a gram of tracking force to stop the needle jumping during the last 5 minutes or so of each side. The signal level is really low, too, and that record really doesn't do the performance justice. Interestingly, this is a Deutsche Grammophon LP and they're not known for cutting corners on technical quality. It was one of the last LPs they produced (1989), and by that time most serious classical music buffs had probably gone to CD. If the recording hadn't been made to commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, I doubt if they'd have released an LP version at all. I bought it in the early '90s for 50p, during that crazy period from around 1990-95 when you could buy remaindered stock of unsold LPs in pristine, unplayed condition for stupidly low prices. I bought a pristine Verve 1980s DMM repressing of Oscar Peterson Plays the Gershwin Songbook for 99p that day, too. It's probably worth quite a bit now.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-01-2006 11:40 AM                     I remember having many classical recordings on the Columbia Label. They had an interesting method of looking at the sound for the next revolution of the disc and changing the width of the land between grooves so the soft grooves were closer than the loud ones. The problem with this system was that you could hear the loud part coming before it actually played. (A pre-echo effect) The variable pitch lathes were very expensive, not that this made any difference at the time. KEN  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 04-01-2006 02:21 PM                        The longest "pop" music LP I ever saw was Todd Rundgren's INITIAION, which ran about 55 minutes. Gerry Rafferty's CITY TO CITY (the album featuring the classic "Baker Street") was almost that long.  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-01-2006 02:32 PM                     quote: I have one recording of Beethoven's 9th crammed onto a single LP: Columbia ML-5200 (1956) with Walter and the PSofNY is a single LP recording of the 9th as well..the 3rd mvt was split in half so the recording could fit on one vinyl. Everest did the same thing with their vinyl mastering of the 9th with Krips and the LSO (recording mastering was using the 35mm method using the Fairchild recorders..). This is a common mastering practice for this particular piece if one vinyl album is to be released.. quote: Kenneth Wuepper The variable pitch lathes were very expensive, not that this made any difference at the time. ..but Mercury's queen, Wilma Cozart, along with her "future" husband Bob Fine, didn't let this stop them in making their "Living Presence" vinyls - starting in 1951 with the Reeves-Fairchild "Margin Control" Process. Their lacquer engineer, George Piros mastered this "margin control" process of the variable groove spacing, thus creating the first "hi-fi" record that was capable of capturing the full audio spectrum on vinyl. Later on, George developed a Scully lathe as his favorite to use and would inscribe on the master lacquer "P-17" that can be seen in the deadwax area of the vinyl releases. quote: Michael Schaffer Obviously, quality deteriorated gradually towards the centre of the LP because of slower groove speeds and of the increasingly steep stylus angle Probably why Deutsche Grammophon, in their early stereo LP's, left so much dead wax in the middle - to eliminate the quality dedregration and to maintain audio output quality throughout the side of the vinyl. RCA, to "hide" this effect and to make smaller portable units sound good, came out with their hideous "Dynagroove" process in 1963, which did work (for the portable units) but sounded extremely bloated for the audiophile units due to massive bass emphasis. -Monte  |  IP: Logged Bruce Hansen Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 847 From: Stone Mountain, GA, USA Registered: Dec 1999 posted 04-01-2006 06:47 PM                     Radio Shack sold a record (some years ago) that was 90 minutes long (45 per side). It was lacking in the low freq. area. Bass causes the grove to "wander", to put the groves closer together, you must limit the amount of bass. An old brain teaser: How many groves are there on a record? ONLY ONE  |  IP: Logged Aaron Sisemore Flaming Ribs beat Reeses Peanut Butter Cups any day! Posts: 3061 From: Rockwall TX USA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 04-01-2006 07:17 PM                     quote: Bruce Hansen An old brain teaser: How many groves are there on a record? ONLY ONE Actually there are two: One for each side. And don't forget the records with 'interleaved' grooves that played a different thing depending on which groove you placed the stylus into. I know there was a Monty Python record that was done this way, and the little records that were used in the 'voice boxes' of the Mattel See-N-Say and in other 'pull the string to hear it talk' thingies worked in a similar fashion. -Aaron  |  IP: Logged Tim Reed Better Projection Pays Posts: 5246 From: Northampton, PA Registered: Sep 1999 posted 04-01-2006 07:26 PM                       Anybody remember the RCA Thesaurus broadcast discs? The big 20-inch jobbies (or so it seemed). You'd get, what, a day and a half outta those?  |  IP: Logged Monte L Fullmer Film God Posts: 8367 From: Nampa, Idaho, USA Registered: Nov 2004 posted 04-02-2006 05:00 AM                     16 inch transcription disks...with the grooves starting from the inside... What was real great is when Edison was pressing those 10inch, quarter inch thick platters, they came out with the rare, 12 inch variety. At 80rpm and with the vertical, narrow cut grooves, one got 20 to 25 minutes per side. quote: Aaron Sisemore And don't forget the records with 'interleaved' grooves that played a different thing depending on which groove you placed the stylus into..... "MAD MAGAZINE" did a few of these "sheet vinyl" interleaved grooved 'soundsheets' as well..pressed by EVA-TONE..... in the early 70's.  |  IP: Logged Kenneth Wuepper Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1026 From: Saginaw, MI, USA Registered: Feb 2002 posted 04-02-2006 07:18 AM                     The recording studio I did service for had two lathes. There were two "LP" feed screws for each lathe. One was for inside out and the other was for outside in. The reason we did the inside out was to allow minimum attention to the lacquer chip as the recording was cut. The thread or chip was very flammable and the cutter had a heated stylus. If the thread got caught in the cutter there was a fire and the disc and stylus were ruined. ($700.00) To help this, inside out made the chip travel neatly into the center of the disc. For outside in we had a vacuum cleaner to draw up the chip and if it broke you had to be right there to recapture it before the "poof!". Only the LP feeds were reversed, the 45 and 78 screws were outside in only. We had hot stylus Gramphion cutters and Gotham amplifiers. 250 watts of tube amplifier, all triodes of course. KEN  |  IP: Logged

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