The Uncommon Vinyl Sizes & Speeds

The Uncommon Vinyl Sizes & Speeds

The standard sizes and speed for vinyl records are 12" and 7" both played at 33 1/3 RPM or 45 RPM. RPM means revolution per minute, the number of times the record rotates a minute.



Image by Mink Mingle

Unusual Sizes for Vinyl

2 in (5.1 cm)
Recorded at 10-20 seconds each side.

3 in (7.6 cm) 

Also known as 8ban for 8cm Bandai, these were developed in Japan by record pressing company Toyokasei. Records in this format continue to be manufactured. 3 inch singles are made available exclusively.

4.7 in (12 cm) 

Although dubbed a 5 inch record, to be usable in most compact disc players, the record can be no bigger than 120 mm.

5 in (13 cm)

Children's records records were manufactured in this size from the early 1900s all the way up to the late 1950s and underground punk bands in the 1990s.

6 in (15 cm)

From the late 1940s to the early 1960s. The 78 RPM speed was used for some children's records of this size well into the 1960s, as nearly all record players still included it and it allowed an old disused 78-only player to be used as a toy. 6 inch flexi discs were popular in Japan where they were known as sound-sheets, these releases were often in traditional round format. The American magazine National Geographic's January 1979 issue included a 6 inch flexi disc of whale sounds called "Songs of the Humpback Whale."

 

8 in (20 cm)

Prior to 1910, 8 inch records to replaced their inexpensive 7 inch product, but they were soon discontinued. In the 1980s and 1990s, they were mostly seen as Japanese pressed records and often included in magazines.

9 in (23 cm) 

Popular in Japan where they were known as sound-sheets, these releases were often in traditional round format and often included in a magazine. The Seeburg 1000 background music system ,1959 to mid-1980s, used 9 inch, 16 RPM records with an unusual 2 inch center hole. Recordings had a capacity of about 40 minutes per side.

14 in (36 cm) 

Between 1903 and 1910, American companies made recordings of 14 inch records that played at the unusual speed of 60 RPM but then soon abandoned.

16 in (41 cm) 

These records provided the sound in the Vitaphone talking picture system developed in the mid-1920s, electrical transcriptions of prerecorded radio programming in the early 1930s. Standard groove records used roughly the same large groove dimensions and spacing found on 78 RPM records and typically played for about 15 minutes per side, with very good fidelity. When heard over the air, it was indistinguishable from live broadcasting to casual listeners.

11 in (28 cm), 13 in (33 cm) 

Underground hardcore punk and goth bands in the 1990s started releasing EPs in these sizes.

8.3 in (21 cm), 9.8 in (25 cm), 10.6 in (27 cm) 11.4 in (29 cm), 13.8 in (35 cm), and 19.7 in (50 cm) 

In the first three decades of the twentieth century European companies made recordings in this size.

Unusual Speeds for Vinyl

78 RPM

Records offer the best sound quality when turned at a higher RPM. But on the downside, when the RPM of a record increases, the playback time it offers decreases. 78 RPM became the standard record speed by 1925. 10 inch records started becoming the standard size for 78 RPM records. Because the standard 10 inch record could hold about three minutes of sound per side, most popular recordings were limited to that duration. The durations of recordings is about three to five minutes for 12 inch and three minutes for 10 inch.

8 1/3 RPM

Beginning in 1969, 8 1/3 RPM records began to be produced normally in 10 inch format, 12 inch and 7 inch records. One 10 inch record holds four hours of speech with the 12 inch variety holding six hours and the 7 inch variety holding roughly 90 minutes. The format was later used to distribute magazines on nine-inch flexible discs recorded at the same speed. These discs were made of thin plastic and were literally flexible, similar to an overhead projector transparency sheet. The last analog disc produced as a format for audio book and magazine was distributed in 2001.

16 2/3 RPM

This speed was used almost exclusively for spoken word content, in particular for earlier versions of the talking books used by the visually impaired, though it was also employed in the Seeburg 1000 Background Music System. For this reason, the inclusion of a 16 2/3 speed setting on turntables became standard roughly between the mid 1950s and very early 1970s despite the records themselves being a rarity. 16 2/3 records require a 0.5 mil stylus to avoid increased wear. 7 inch records used shallow and narrow ultra-microgrooves, requiring a 0.25 mil stylus.

Image by Samantha Lam

Experimental Speeds

3 RPM & 4 1/6 RPM

No recording lathe can engrave a record accurately at such a slow speed, in actuality the record was mastered at four-times speed or 16 rpm with the program material similarly being played at quadruple speed. Audiobooks experiments in 1966 were the highest successful density tested. In the experiments, records could play10 hours on one side of a 12-inch disc although it was surmised by engineers that this could be extended to 12 hours per side if needed. But mastering companies deemed the audio quality insufficient and wouldn't master records below 16 RPM.

24 RPM

During the same period of 16 RPM, especially in the UK, producers manufactured this speed prior to the days when 16 RPM could provide intelligible voice recognition quality over repeated plays. The U.S. manufactured this speed for dictation records such as the Edison Voicewriter which recorded on thin flexible plastic discs.

Other Speeds

Between 1910 - 1930, a number of proprietary formats existed: with recordings made at speeds including 130 RPM, 80 RPM, 60 RPM, 73.29 RPM (before the 78 rpm was considered a worldwide standard), 77.92 RPM became European standard, and 78.26 RPM became American standard.


For other sources and additional information:
Unusual types of gramophone records
What Is Vinyl

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