[BC] RCA phono plugs - How far back?

[Milton R. Holladay Jr.]

There were jillions of 45 RPM stereo records made, concurrent with 33s.
They were micro-groove like 33s, too. ( "The Big Hurt" by Toni Fisher with
the stereo phasing effects would be a blatant example.)

As is often the case, wikipedia is incorrect: Emory Cook issued "binaural"
records some years previous to the 45/45 type. Thy had two bands of grooves
and required a forked tonearm with two pickups to play them (Livingston made
the only one I know of.), and had half the playback time, of course. Quite
naturally, they had fantastic separation.

WE style TRS phone plugs were made in 3/16ths and 1/8th inch as well as
1/4". The 1/8th" type were mostly used in patch bays of large recording
studio consoles starting around 1980 (AFAIK) and generally made lousy
contact if not squeaky clean.
There's also one or two even smaller non-WE  TRS types used in cassette
machines, &c., as most of you know.  I have not seen any that were metric,
although I share your opinion of metric stuff...........
M

----- Original Message -----
From: <RichardBJohnson at comcast.net>
Cc: "Vernon Kuehn" <vkuehn at bellsouth.net>


> [snip]
. The first stereo records were LP
> records. In fact, I'm not sure there was ever a stereo
> 45 RPM record although radio stations played them with
> the same needles used for 78 and 33-1/3.
>
> Wikipedia reports:
> "In 1958 the first stereo two-channel records were issued-by
> Audio Fidelity in the USA and Pye in Britain, using the Westrex
> "45/45" single-groove system...."
>
> Note that 45/45 deals with angles, not disc speed.
>
> The TRS (Tip-Ring-Sleeve) phone-jack is as old as the telephone
> switchboard and Western electric. There were two sizes, the
> early ones that had a 1/4 in dia. maximum size and a late-model
> one that had some "!^$_!@#%" metric size before their use was
> superseded by electronic switching. I never saw them used
> anywhere in radio except for earphone jacks, microphones,
> and musical instruments, even the junky ones on consumer
> equipment were used to plug in earphones or "crystal"
> microphones.
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