[WalterBright]

I just find this hilarious. If you like the sound of vinyl; record it to a CDROM, play the CDROM, it sounds just like vinyl, pops, clicks, skips and all.

Also, back in the glorious disco era, record companies would release 12" single disks, where the grooves were spaced wide enough that the bass beat could be laid down. What more proof does anyone need that 33 records are inferior?

[DanBC]

12" singles were about extended play time, not about bass.

[WalterBright]

I'm afraid that is incorrect. I own many disco ones, and the bass is what they're for. The grooves are spread out and it frequently runs at 45 rpm. It's pretty obvious if you listen to one vs the 33 version.

[DanBC]

Feel free to show any industry material promoting the sound quality of 12" 45rpm. They were only ever pushed as having more content than a 7" 45rpm.

[ectoplasm]

The non-existence of ads on the internet from 40 years ago is not a validation of your universal claim. Second, people still press 12" 45 rpm singles, why would they do that when 33 rpm is available?

Here's something written by an engineer:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/why-45-rpm-great-45-rp...

[WalterBright]

My 12" single of "Ipanema" from the B-52s is 3:58. The album version is 4:24.

My 12" single of "I'm So Excited" by the Pointer Sisters is 3:47. The album version is 3:53.

I doubt that'll convince you, either. But I recommend that you actually obtain a 12" disco single from the late 70's and a 45 and compare with your own ears. It's also fun to look at the difference in the grooves with a magnifying glass.

[ectoplasm]

You would get 10-12 minutes of music on a side instead of 30 so the grooves are wider and thus higher fidelity.

[DanBC]

You get longer playtime than a 7" single. 12" singles were only ever marketed for extended remixes - longer play time than a 7" single but cheaper than a 33 1/3 RPM album. Do you have any ads for 12" singles that talk about better sound quality?

[ectoplasm]

Okay, maybe some unintuitive pizza math works here.

7" 45 rpm record, about 4.5 minutes max. Center label is 4". Label area = pi * 4^2 = 50.27 in^2. Total record area = pi * 7^2 = 153.94 in^2. Playable area (max, ignoring runout and edge) = 153.94 - 50.27 = 103.67 in^2. Call it 100 in^2.

12" 33 rpm single, about 12 minutes max. Center label is 4". Label area = 50.27 in^2. Total record area = pi * 12^2 = 452.39 in^2. Playable area = 452.39 - 50.27 = 402.12 in^2. Call it 400 in^2.

So, the 12" record has 400/100 = 4x as much space, but the playtime is 12 / 4.5 = 2.7x. For the remainder, you get quality. If the 7" record was 33rpm and you had about 7 minutes max, then 12/7 = 1.7x, which means even more room for quality improvements.

In general, you can trade play time for quality when cutting vinyl. If your grooves are at the maximum width, to the point that you'd leave substantial uncut vinyl between them to fill up the track width on your record, then you can get even more quality by moving from 33rpm to 45rpm because now a longer length of groove contains the same length of sound. All else considered, 12" 7-minute 45rpm sounds very good.

And also, I know the original reference was to disco, but new 12" singles are still being released, sometimes exclusively on vinyl. It slowed down, but it never stopped. Sorry, no ads, just personal experience.

[WalterBright]

I've never seen an ad for one. Most of mine were distributed to DJs only. Another nicety with the DJ ones is they didn't have pops and clicks when new. Sometimes the flip side was the same edit - in case you damaged one side, use the other!