The history of the 45 adaptor

Discussion in 'Audio Hardware' started by PaulKTF, Oct 4, 2019.

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  1. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
  2. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    i remember not being able to find one and trying so hard to center the 45 so it wouldn't wobble around ridiculously.
     
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  3. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Well I guess you adapted after all. :)
     
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  4. rjp

    rjp Senior Member

    Location:
    Ohio
    i guess i did!

    :)
     
  5. Johnny Action

    Johnny Action Forum President

    Location:
    Kailua, Hawai’i
    Circular reasoning.
     
  6. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Barely an article, there, but a nice quick intro. Didn't really get into my most perplexing question, which is...why.

    Are we all assuming the primary reasoning was just market differentiation? I think England showed how unnecessary it was.
     
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  7. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Quick and sleazy reason
    Why is the Hole on a 45 RPM Record So Big? - A Journal of Musical Things
    Love those old UK's :)
    B-side is an edit of Slowdown Sundown
    [​IMG]
     
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  8. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Now that's something I'd never thought about, the need to get a record up-to-speed, in time for the needle to hit the next record, playing on a stack of earlier discs. Because, lightweight or not lightweight, only the first one in the stack is sitting directly on the platter...the others are only as stable as the (slipperier) discs they're sitting on!

    :idea: Maybe instead of worrying about the torque getting a disc up-to-speed, they should have worked faster to invent velcro...

    But, as I said earlier, the Brits proved Nipper didn't need a biger hole for engineering reasons, since their punch-out hole was all the kids needed to keep on rockin', Dansette or otherwise, no spin-up issues anyway!
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2019
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  9. DaleClark

    DaleClark Forum Resident

    Location:
    Columbus, Ohio
    RCA ‘s innovation did not stop with 45 records. RCA amazed the world by developing CED vinyl videodiscs.
     
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  10. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Umm, ohh-kay. I used to sell them at Penney's. They also had a big hole in the middle.

    Was that your point? Mine was that I see why they used the design of the record to differentiate themselves from what was already out there in the marketplace, but by England marketing 45's with an optionally-removable spindle insert, it proved that it wasn't really necessary for the bigger hole to be there to improve the torque issue on the record, if you could play it just as easily without having the larger hole.

    Therefore, without the larger hole to differentiate it from an LP or a 78, it was essentially a littler record with a higher speed to improve fidelity, at the expense of having a shorter play time. I'm not thinking like an engineer here, but more like a sales consultant.
     
    Last edited: Oct 5, 2019
  11. vwestlife

    vwestlife Forum Resident

    Location:
    New Jersey, USA
    Here's a great video from Fran Blanche explaining the history of the 45 RPM record and demonstrating one of RCA's first 45 RPM-exclusive automatic record changers from 1949:

     
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  12. sethICE

    sethICE Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    I like this thread, as my avatar indicates.
     
  13. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    You are a central figure.
     
  14. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
  15. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    The author is asking questions more than giving answers :). For one, the following paragraph

    Given the competition between vinyl formats in the late 1940s, it seems odd that RCA would have marketed a product that essentially encouraged record collectors to buy anything other than RCA-made turntables. (Who else was manufacturing 45rpm turntables at that time, anyway?)
    is making the wrong assumptions. Yes in the early days of the vinyl records around 1948 there was a format war between 33s and 45s dubbled "battle of the speeds", the major distinctions being speed, size and diameter of the centre hole. By the early 1950s this format war was over though, the two formats had merged into one by all new turntables made from then on incorporating both 33 and 45 (and often 78 as well). By 1960 the conflict was forgotten history, there were no 45rpm-only turntables by that time, and it was common sense to manufacture centre hole adapers. They weren't hurting their 45-only business model because that had long been abandoned.

    By the way, in the UK, domestic 45s have always been manufactured with a small centre hole, so the need for adapters didn't arise.
     
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  16. BrentB

    BrentB Urban Angler

    Location:
    Midwestern US
    So did ANYONE ever punch out the center adapters on the UK 7" releases? Owning a couple dozen and looking through thousands I have never seen the "adapter" removed. I also have a few German 45's from the 70's that have a plastic 3-spoke design molded into the center.
     
  17. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    I think that was only useful for jukeboxes, because they continued to have the large spindle.
     
  18. andrewskyDE

    andrewskyDE Island Owner

    Location:
    Europe
    Cool. I have the Elvis EP Jailhouse Rock with this thing.

    [​IMG]

    I have a couple Beatles and Pink Floyd singles where (unfortunately) the semi-solid adapter was punched out.
     
  19. Dillydipper

    Dillydipper Space-Age luddite

    Location:
    Central PA
    Who here has done that? Do you actually feel comfortable doing it without concern you might damage the record itself somehow? I am asking from complete ignorance, as I've never tried myself.
     
  20. anorak2

    anorak2 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Berlin, Germany
    The pre-punched ones as in @c-eling 's photo look easy to punch, but I wouldn't dream of doing it for fear of losing the graphics or info on it, and for its resale value.
     
  21. c-eling

    c-eling They're made of light,We never would have guessed

    Yeah, I'd be ruining the Island Palm :laugh:
     
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  22. All Down The Line

    All Down The Line The Under Asst East Coast White Label Promo Man

    Location:
    Australia
    Some players also had a 4th speed if 16 rpm.
     
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  23. andrewskyDE

    andrewskyDE Island Owner

    Location:
    Europe
    What's great is some UK (and possibly elsewhere) singles actually also had solid centres/small holes like the LPs.
    So no way of pushing anything out here.^^

    [​IMG]
     
  24. sotosound

    sotosound Forum Resident

    In contrast to the USA, the UK industry referred to singles with the enlarged centres as “large centre hole” since it wasn’t the UK standard size.

    UK jukebox operators used a bench-mounted cutter called a “dinker” to cut out these solid centres so that singles could be loaded into jukeboxes.

    Dinking was more difficult with injection-moulded singles since they would often split rather than allow the centre to be cut out. A liberal amount of petroleum jelly applied to the cutter reduced the chances of splitting, however. Polygram pressings were the worst in this respect. CBS pressings less so.

    I know this as I used to dink singles by the thousand back in the late 70s and early 80s. My user name is (cryptically) connected to this. :)
     
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  25. sethICE

    sethICE Forum Resident

    Location:
    NYC
    Unfortunately I see UK 45s with the (die-cut) center punched out all the time. Obviously these records are more desirable with the center intact.

    There are also differences between the various labels (or more precisely the pressing plant) and the physical attributes of the punch-out center, e.g. 3 prong vs. 4-prong. There are Beatles pressings made by contract with Philips that have 3 prongs instead of the 4 used by EMI, Decca, CBS, and Pye. Using Hey Jude as an example, compare:
    EMI:
    [​IMG]
    Pye:
    [​IMG]
    Philips:
    [​IMG]

    Most of the pressing plants also produced solid center versions, e.g.:
    [​IMG]

    Source: The Beatles U.K. Singles/Apple original
     
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