16 rpm records?

My grandfather had a variety of 16 rpm records he'd gotten from a college that was getting rid of them. All of them were educational; some of people pronouncing words in French or Spanish, or recordings of speeches from religious or political people. Pretty darn boring, in other words. There were some that were quick little debates between 2 people on a religious topic. The TD-124 was manufactured with a setting for 16 rpm.

 

Actually, they were 16⅔ RPM - exactly half the standard LP speed.

 

Yup when I was a kid I had a few of them. They were spoken word. Sounded just fine on my player. I think they were the size of 45 RPM records but with a 33 RPM sized spindle hole.

 

Many were, but there were also 9", 10" and some 12" 16 rpm records released. There were also 8 rpm records. Lots of this stuff was for recorded books for the blind, or promotional material for radio stations doing news shows or the like.

 

Amazing.

 

Herb Alpert sounds pretty good on the 16 rpm disk.......but it sounds just a tad slow.

 

I'm still trying to figure out how they expect people to play a 3 rpm record!
I wonder how the guy in the video rigged his turntable to play so slow.
I read somewhere that back in the 50s there was some kind of adapter that enabled 16 rpm records to be played at correct speed on a 33 rpm setting.

 

There's 8rpm records too.

 

My grandfather was blind and he used to received transcriptions of the news on 16 2/3 records. The labels were printed in braille. He had a turntable given to him that only played 16 2/3 and 33 1/3.

 

A wonderful machine! We used to have one!

 

Back when I was a lad, my grandfather's "stereogram" had 16, 33, 45 and 78 speeds.
Now I know that 78's were the commonplace medium early in vinyl's history but have never known what 16 rpm was used for.
Can someone enlighten me please?

 

Well I can say that the 16 RPM records we used to own were speech only...usually some turn of the 20th century sounding British dude waxing poetic about something or other...

 

Talking books. They were on record before they were on cassette.

 

I have seen one. In fact, I remember playing one on our record player at home back around 1970. I don't remember what it was, though.

The last time I saw a record play at that speed was in the early 80s. The company I worked for had a Muzak system that played those records continuously.

 

Other major note here. Chrysler Highway HiFi and Seeburg Background Music records require a .5 mil light tracking, compliant stylus to avoid damage. And compliance needs similar to that of proper Stereo playback. Otherwise, they get damaged.

 

Maybe reading the other messages in this thread will help?

 

National Library Service For The Blind And Physically Handicapped

http://www.loc.gov/nls/

used to produce talking book records at 16 RPM because you could fit more content on each side that way.



There are other videos of these record players on YouTube.

 

A friend of mine had this exact LP. I was surprised at how good it sounded given the speed and condition of the disc. (He had a TOTL Miracord changer with a Shure V15-III cart.)

 

Here is the album I referred to upthread (several years ago) -- Modern Jazz Survey: Baritones & French Horns. This was the original release of all of this material. Side 1 of this album must be the most familiar originally-on-16 rpm record ever made, since it was later re-pressed as the 33 rpm Coltrane album Dakar. The other side was also reissued.

 

what a cool version of Taste Of Honey!

 

Yeah, Herb is awesome! I love that version of the song. Go buy Whipped Cream And Other Delights- you'll like it.

 

When I was a kid I had a record player with speeds of 16, 33, 45 and 78. It had a "flip over" needle like this:



I forgot all about it and remembered it was on my player. Never used it for anything because I didn't have 16's or 78's. Haven't seen once since.