5 ms·
Forgotten audio formats: The Highway Hi-Fi
- bootload 11y ago"Nor was there any skimping on the software technicalities, for the Highway Hi-Fi music discs were heavy, quality pressings of 135-gram vinyl with ultra-fine grooves—over 216 grooves per centimetre." 135g Vinyl isn't that high quality when market releases between 120 and 140g especially compared to the high-end 180g Grundman [0] on my desk.... what I didn't know was this was the birth of the 33rpm LP that I bought and listened too as a kid. "But the players had made a mark: microgroove records were an indirect spin-off, serving as slabs of vinyl that were capable of holding one hour of music. These 60-minute discs were being pressed and sold in their millions by the mid-'70s. The neatly titled Gold Hour Records was one of the biggest labels to benefit from that format's success." The 33rpm 'microgroove' record is what we now know as the LP or Long Play record. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSwejSlZFFE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSwejSlZFFE
- mchahn 11y agoWow, they got George Harrison and Muhammad Ali for their PR? That must have cost a fortune.
- alricb 11y agoIf you look closely at the pictures, you can see that Ali and Harrison are actually holding 45 rpm records (large center hole) and not 16 2/3 rpm records (small center hole, like a 33 1/3 rpm record). The Highway Hi-Fi was discontinued in 1957 -- Harrison joined the Quarrymen in 1958 at the earliest and Ali didn't turn professional until 1960. In addition, they aren't even in Chryslers in the pictures: Ali is in a '59 Cadillac and Harrison is in a '64 Jaguar.
- yuhong 11y agoI wonder what would happen to record companies if DAT existed in the 1960s or 1970s (before they really consolidated).
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoDAT couldn't have existed because the technology wasn't there. Audio DACs were lab-grade items that cost four or five figures. The smaller digital tape packs in the 1970s had a capacity of maybe 256Kb per reel. And it wouldn't have made any difference, because in-car audio worked just fine with 8-track carts, which were available from the mid-1960s. Compact cassettes took over about a decade later.
- yuhong 11y agoI know, I am talking about the issue of how the music industry tried to kill it for example.
- gcb0 11y agothey leave out that Motorola was a spin of from RCA and Ericsson (? maybe Phillips?) to create that car-vitriola monstrosity
- rwmj 11y agoTechmoan has been doing a great series of videos on obsolete formats. Here's the Playtape: http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/1/13/heres-something-old-the-playtape.html http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/1/13/heres-something-old-t... and the CED video disk: http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/3/13/retro-tech-the-rca-ced-videodisc.html http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2016/3/13/retro-tech-the-rca-ce... (video on a vinyl disk read using a stylus, what could possibly go wrong!)
- InclinedPlane 11y agoThe coolest thing he's covered, I think, that I'd never heard of before is the tefifon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBNTAmLRmUg It's basically a continuous loop of tape (similar to an 8-track) but with groves recording music (like a vinyl record). It didn't see much popularity outside of Germany and then was essentially obsoleted by magnetic tape. Such a fascinating technology though. In a parallel Universe it probably would have been vastly more popular.
- joezydeco 11y agoI guess I'm old enough to remember Bruce Sterling's Dead Media project (RIP): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Media_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Media_Project