[dave walsh]

That's a pretty good summary Christopher. There has been lots of discussion and threads on here in the past [eg Nymrod's link] and different explanations. When you add in all the technical and commercial issues in the UK and USA markets there's lot of varied explanations about most aspects. It's true that 78's went into the background by the early sixties but it was a relatively slow decline. Shops often sold them in just in a plain brown paper bag-the opposite of sixties marketing. I think the old adage about faster speed equalling better quality very much applied to records and tape-recording back then, with the same restriction on recording times in both instances. My view on the 78/80 platters is that a surprisingly high quality was often achieved and can still be resolved today. The Sound Engineer Robert Parker got some amazing results as broadcast on the BBC in the eighties [Jazz Classics in Stereo] often derived from the very earliest 78 rpm Mono Records [not the sort of fake "stereo" that was on some modern vinyl recordings at that point] a different technique!

Dave W

"Perfecting Sound Forever-The Story of Recorded Music" by Greg Milner [2009] is one of very many excellent books covering this topic. It's a fascinating and very readable account of both the history and technical issues.