It is no secret that vinyl is back. After decades of packing our record collections away in favor of CDs and digital streaming, turntables have finally returned to the mainstream.
If you are familiar with classic, heavy-duty turntables—like a trusty Garrard or one of those massive Zenith Cobra-Matic wooden consoles—you probably know that there were four speeds to choose from. There was 33 ⅓, 45, 78, and on many models, there was a fourth, mysterious option: 16 ⅔.
Have you ever wondered why on earth we needed so many different speeds just to listen to music? The record companies didn’t exactly get together and agree on how things should work. It was actually the result of a massive corporate ego trip, a bizarre experiment in cars, and a whole lot of trial and error.
Welcome to the Great Speed Wars!
Before the late 1940s, all records were brittle shellac discs that spun at 78 RPM (Revolutions Per Minute). They were heavy, broke easily, and depending on their size—either 10 or 12 inches—only held 3 to 5 minutes of music per side. If you wanted to buy a whole symphony, it came on multiple records in a binder, which is exactly why we still call a record an “album” today!
Despite the fragility of those early records and the need for a lot of space to store them, I have always thought that it would be cool to own a Victrola… maybe one day!
In 1948, Columbia Records changed the music world by inventing the 33 ⅓ RPM “Long Play” (LP). Because it spun at a slower speed and had microscopic grooves, they had to ditch the brittle shellac and press the new discs on a flexible, durable plastic called polyvinyl chloride—or vinyl, as we simply call it today. This revolutionary advancement meant you could fit over 20 minutes of music on one side of a single, space-saving disc.
There was just one problem: the president of rival RCA Victor, David Sarnoff, was seriously angry that his engineers didn’t get there first.
Instead of swallowing his pride and accepting Columbia’s offer to license its superior format, Sarnoff refused and launched an aggressive counter-attack. RCA introduced the 45 RPM “donut” record, which they had actually been secretly developing for years. They stubbornly tried to convince the public that nobody needed long-play records because RCA’s automatic record changers were so fast! They actually tried to sell full albums as a giant stack of 45s.
Consumers quickly made it clear they did not want their music interrupted every three minutes by a dropping mechanism. Let’s face it: the original invention of the record was amazing, but the world of music was moving forward. Trying to sell a full album as a stack of 45s was really nothing more than a return to the clunky era of 78s, just with a smaller-sized record.
Eventually, the two massive corporations agreed to a truce: Columbia’s 33 ⅓ LP became the standard for full albums, and RCA’s 45 became the format for selling cheaper, single pop songs.
If 78s were the past, 33 ⅓s were the albums, and 45s were the singles… what was that bizarre 16 ⅔ setting on your old turntable actually used for?
Because the record spun half as fast as an LP, you could fit a large amount of audio onto a single side—sometimes up to a full hour! The trade-off was that the audio fidelity was terrible and sounded like you were listening to music through a tin can.
Because of the poor sound quality, major record labels ignored it. Instead, the ultra-slow speed was used for three very specific things:
1. “Talking Books” for the Blind: The Library of Congress used the format to cheaply distribute hour-long recordings of spoken-word audiobooks.
2. Elevator Music: Companies who provided background music for restaurants and retail stores used 16 ⅔ RPM records so an automatic changer could play endless, looping music for hours without an employee needing to flip the disc.
3. The Highway Hi-Fi: In the mid-1950s, Chrysler had the crazy idea to put a record player directly into the dashboard of their cars! They pressed special 16 ⅔ RPM records so drivers could listen to whole albums on the road. Despite a heavy tonearm, hitting a pothole inevitably caused the needle to skip, and the ridiculous concept was quickly scrapped. As odd as the idea seemed at the time, when you think about it, it actually paved the way for future in-car audio options like the cassette and CD player.
Standard turntables eventually dropped the 16 ⅔ and 78 speeds, but not before providing an entire generation of kids with a universal childhood experience.
If you grew up with a four-speed turntable, you almost certainly did it. There was nothing quite as funny as taking your favorite upbeat pop singer and dropping them down to 16 ⅔ so they sounded like a slow-motion monster. Or, cranking a 33 ⅓ LP up to 78 RPM so the entire band instantly sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks!
One of the things I love about writing a blog is that you never really know when inspiration might strike. One minute I was dropping a needle on a record, and the next I was thinking about how we only have 33 ⅓ and 45 on our turntables today. Just like that, the idea for this post was born!
I knew that 78 was where it all began, but then I began to wonder about that weird 16 ⅔. Before long, I was off researching it. I never imagined that I would find not only an explanation, but also the story of a corporate war over—of all things—the speed at which a record spins!
Did you know about this crazy little piece of history, or are you new to the story like I was? Drop a comment and let us know!