PYE Vinyl 78s

[Ekcoman]

Dug out a vinyl 78 rpm and got me questioning why was that format ditched. Production cost, size or both, something else?. Unlike shellac this doesn't have the crackles of frying bacon. Thought faster the speed the better the reproduction.

[Edward Huggins]

I have a number of these and they do sound truly excellent. They were mainly limited run traditional/mainstream Jazz releases. I concur with your comments completely.
But I think that by 1956, when these came out, anything to do with the 78rpm media format was, er, "old hat"...

[barrymagrec]

Bit iffy on an acoustic gramophone possibly?

Steel needle and all that.

[Hartley118]

Originally Posted by barrymagrec

Bit iffy on an acoustic gramophone possibly?

Steel needle and all that.

Certainly!

I guess that, but for the stresses applied by acoustic gramophones, particularly the need for the disc to grind a steel needle into ‘shape’, we could have enjoyed quieter 78 disc surfaces a great deal earlier.

Martin

[Ted Kendall]

Disastrous - lightweight pickups only! All other things being equal, the higher the groove speed, the better the reproduction. However, a narrower groove is less susceptible to curvature effects, and the minimum recorded diameter on microgroove discs was also greater than that on coarse groove. Also, the average microgroove pickup of 1956 was a far more refined animal than the average 78 pickup of even five years before.

Mind you, they don't 'arf sound good!

[electronicskip]

I was recently in a local charity shop and found a very nice Elvis Presley 78 record for sale for a reasonable price .
I bought it for an friend who is an Elvis fanatic and he actually reported that the playback quality was much higher than he had expected.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by electronicskip

I was recently in a local charity shop and found a very nice Elvis Presley 78 record for sale for a reasonable price .
I bought it for an friend who is an Elvis fanatic and he actually reported that the playback quality was much higher than he had expected.

According to the very good Vox Record Hunter by Tony Rees RCA UK were releasing Elvis Presley singles as 78s as late as 1960. Some of the last were in very short press runs, & possibly a special order item at record shops.

[dave walsh]

As Ted said, generally the faster it revolves [or winds on in the case of magnetic tape] the better the result. Apart from these "late entry" 78's pressed on vinyl, I've always thought that the Shellac originals can also produce outstanding quality with a decent stylus and amp [not a steel needle though ]. The surface noise is not always intrusive, especially if different styli are tried. Apart from outstanding Jazz/Pop and Classical material, I've got a sing-a-long type "party" record which, although quite light weight in content, has a really good "sound field" and immediate clarity!

Dave W

[Michael Maurice]

Originally Posted by Richard_FM

According to the very good Vox Record Hunter by Tony Rees RCA UK were releasing Elvis Presley singles as 78s as late as 1960. Some of the last were in very short press runs, & possibly a special order item at record shops.

I've got one or two, Stuck on You being one of them.

[Heatercathodeshort]

They played very well on a heavy pick up. Some while ago I tried to destroy a vinyl 78 playing it on a HMV wind up with steel needles. After about 30 playings I got bored but was very surprised how well it had retained it's quality when played on a 1940's light weight [well it was for the 40's] set up with a Garrard RC65.
The 'On a Street Where You live'. has been put aside somewhere but I will attempt to dig it out and play it a bit more.. If I can suffer it that is..John.

[bluepilot]

Originally Posted by dave walsh

As Ted said, generally the faster it revolves [or winds on in the case of magnetic tape] the better the result. Apart from these "late entry" 78's pressed on vinyl, I've always thought that the Shellac originals can also produce outstanding quality with a decent stylus and amp [not a steel needle though ]. The surface noise is not always intrusive, especially if different styli are tried.

I have a few almost mint shellac records where the surface noise is almost as good as vinyl. The noise generally attributed to shellac is actually the damage done when playing them with heavy-weight pickups. Something robust like shellac was necessary to stand up to the punishment records got with acoustic pickups. Once lighter-weight pickups became available it became practical to use other materials. Even wartime V-discs weren't made from shellac.

The 78rpm format was the best that could be managed at the time but a lot of "ordinary" music was outside the limits of what it was capable of. For example it couldn't handle high amplitude high frequencies in the inner grooves so it was necessary to avoid music with e.g. loud cymbals at the end. I find that cymbals generally sound unconvincing anyway. I think that basically technology had progressed and the 78rpm format was just obselete.

[emeritus]

Circa 1960 I managed to destroy a 7" 45 rpm record by playing it on a portable 78 wind-up. My recollection is of distorted sound of low volume and curls of vinyl. It was "The Flea Song" by Lord Flea that I had bought cheaply from a street market stall. Definitely not possible to attempt a second play!

[Ted Kendall]

78s could give astonishing quality as far back a 1926, given a following wind, and I have spent a large part of the past thirty years preserving it. Mint shellacs can indeed be very quiet, but a lot of the crackle found on used 78s is down to the effect of moisture on the filler, which expands and pockmarks the surface. On some Deccas, where the mixing of filler left something to be desired, said pockmark can cover several turns.

[rontech]

I seem to recall in the late 70's or early 80's EMI made a vinyl 12" 78 rpm re-issue of a hit song from 1949. The Irish singer Joseph Locke with "Hear my Song Violetta". I had an original 10" shellac 78 of this on Columbia DB series.

The vinyl was very good sound quality

[Ted Kendall]

Some of the EMI classical 12" 45s of the early eighties made a cracking noise. The Nimbus "Comparisons" box has one side recorded direct to disc at 78...

[Courtney Louise]

More recently Capitol released a dual 78rpm pack of Good Vibrations - The Beach Boys and it's superb

[emeritus]

Here's a vinyl Pye 78 from 1958 that I picked up in a charity shop a year or so ago. At present my deck with a 78 speed is on the "round tuit" pile so I can't comment on the quality. I hadn't seen one before and thought it was worth the 10p price. Never heard of the artiste.

[John Caswell]

I remember the Pye/NIxa 78 rpm vinyl discs very well, but we played them once only on a t/table of the time around '58. When we dragged them out much later, around '69-'70 and played them a 301 plus Decca arm/head we were astounded by the quality and signal to noise.
As my boss said at the time, especially as I was into reel to reel, "speed gives you bandwidth and tape width gives you signal to noise".
When I play some modern 12" 45rpm vinyls a lot of years drop away. I just wish I had kept the 78 rpm vinyls. Ah well

John

[Richard_FM]

EMI used a shellac substitute for their later 78's and still had some around in the 1980's when Paul McCartney wanted a limited run of the Quarrymen's demo disc In Spite Of All The Danger / That'll Be The Day.

[vidjoman]

I used to buy lots of records back in the mid 1950's and these Pye 78 discs were made on the same presses as the 10" LP's. Their pressing plant had been refurbished with new equipment and the old shellac presses and machines removed. They knew there was only a limited market for 78's as vinyl 45's had begun to be the disc of choice for many people.
Pye did produce a lot of Nixa Jazz records and pressed and distributed the American Mercury label. I still have my ones buried away.