@miele_ge, interesting about that RCA. I'd be curious about the technology it used. The two real innovations of the Columbia Long-Playing format were not the speed per se, but the use of PVC vs. shellac as the medium, and the microgrooves with the diamond stylus. PVC hadn't been invented in 1931, so that might have been one of the things that crippled the RCA system.
I've got about 400 LPs, nearly all of them purchased new in the 1970s and '80s. I believe the last time I purchased a new LP would have been around 1992. And yeah, I've got some of the Mobile Fidelity Labs half-speed pressings. They really were good, about as good as the format was capable of getting. The surface noise is low enough that you can hear where the master tape was started during the disc cutting. During my teenage years in the early-mid '70s, we all played our albums on whatever equipment was available. I didn't have the money to purchase a decent turntable until 1979, when I bought a Technics SL-230 belt drive. I still have it and use it; the motor regulation is a bit flaky but it still runs. It's on its third belt, third neon strobe bulb, and fifth or sixth cartridge. At one point I had an Audio-Technica cartridge with a Shibata stylus in it. I believe that was just about the best sound I ever heard come out of an LP turntable that didn't cost megabucks.
I still play my LPs, but I'm in the (very, very slow) process of digitizing them for more convenient formats. Unlike some folks, I have no nostalgia for the LP sound. I don't miss surface noise, wow and flutter, rumble, scratches, or tracking error one bit, nor do I miss some of the mastering compromises that had to be made in order to render a disc cuttable and trackable. And I don't miss the per-side length limit. I'll take a properly recorded and mastered CD or lossless-compression file any day.
However, I will admit to nostalgia for the technology. Looking back, it's rather amazing to look at the evolution of the equipment over my lifetime. We went from all-in-one portable players, to console stereos, to separates in about 20 years. Changer concepts came and went, and in the end we went back to manual changing. 45s had their day, and there were a zillion different methods of accommodating the larger center hole. People played with various EP formats. There was direct-to-disc, dual-groove mastering (Monty Python's Matching Tie and Handkerchief), various funny noises recorded into the runout grooves, and stuff that people wrote in the runout blank area next to the matrix number. 4-channel formats came and went, as did various noise reduction systems. And finally there were the hip-hop turntablists, who grabbed the format and used it for their own purposes. An amazing number of changes, considering that the basic concept remained the same throughout.
