Here is a story I got from my 1996 diary:
One afternoon Linda Bird, a friend of ours stopped by for a visit. She told us a story that I will always remember. It seems she was at her house, baby sitting a 7 and 12 year old for a friend. Sometime during the evening, the kids discovered some LP records and wanted to listen to them. When Linda put one on the turntable and played it, the kids were amazed; they had never seen a record player before.
I found Linda’s story so memorable, because I had forgotten just how quickly audio technology had changed. Record players had been such an integral part of our lives as we grew up. We depended heavily on them for our music, and by 1996, they had been relegated to the past, replaced with cassettes or CD’s, and kids had been growing up having never watched or heard a record play.
In our youth we played our vinyl 45’s and albums over and over. We got so used to the crackles, scratches and skips on the record, that we anticipated them whenever we listened to the songs. We were surprised upon listening to those same songs on a tape or CD, when those familiar scratches didn’t occur.
I remember stacking pennies or nickels on the record player stylus to make it heavier and hold it down tighter into the grooves of the records to prevent the skipping on some songs.
The photo above shows all of my old records.
Surprisingly, records and record players have made a comeback in recent years. Music is again being released on vinyl records, and you can buy blue tooth turntables which allow you to listen to your music on your devices or with earpods. I have often heard that the sound you get from records is much fuller and more accurate that the same songs on CDs.
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