Early 10-inch LP records-circa 1948-53
 

Just wondering if anyone here has seen or heard of the early 10-inch LPs(the same size as a regular 10-inch 78 rpm record) I have a few of these early LPs from Decca, RCA Victor, Columbia, London Records, Brunswick Records, Varsity Records and from maybe another label as well. Columbia introduced the LP record in 1948, but RCA Victor had also a 33 1/3 record format from 1931-32 as well. The first Columbia LP record had a blue label in 1948, while the first 45 rpm record was made of a transparent green vinyl with a green label by RCA Victor in 1949. Those early 10 inch LPs are very hard to find, I also might add.

Yeah...I have a few old jazz and blues sides. The sound quality is all over the map.
Some sound phenomenol….some...rather dismal. My oldest and most important is an acoustic recording of Sergei Rachominov on Edison.

I have quite a few of them, from the late 1940s up until the 1990s. The 10" size is still occasionally used for novelty or promo reasons, the newest one I have is a Radiohead double album, from 1999. Sound quality is determined by the same factors as with LPs, they're just shorter.

There have also been numerous reissues of jazz records on the 10" size. If you go to a good record store in a major city, you will turn up tons of 10" LPs, in all musical genres. It never caught on like the 12" LP did, but it's also far from rare. Most decent automatic record players can sense the 10" size, and drop the needle at the correct place.

The 10" LP was also used in foreign countries, for example the USSR produced them, and even made some 33.3RPM record players whose maximum size is 10".

Edit: I removed reference to calling the 10" record an EP, I always thought it was known this way, but I did some reading about it and apparently I was wrong.

Some of my swing LP collection is 10". I've also got a more recent blue and white swirl color vinyl of some rock group.

The 1930s RCA 33 rpm releases were not the same as modern ( post 1948) LPs since RCAs system did not use microgroove technology.

I have a ton of them from Columbia. Mostly reissues of early 78 rpm albums on the Masterworks labels. Audio quality generally exceeds the original 78 rpm version, but not by a lot.

I have over 40 Columbia Masterworks Classical 10" LP Albums all from between 1948-1953 or so and they are all in near mint condition, including their covers/jackets.

I have quite a few of them. As has been already said, sound quality is all over the place. I have a copy of The New Sound by Les Paul which sounds absolutely wonderful, some Decca albums which are reissues of 78s which are OK, and some Varsity and other budget label discs which sound awful. These are pretty common for the most part, but there are a few that are somewhat valuable.

Big issue with the pre 1955 10" LP discs. They were mastered before the RIAA (RCA New Orthophonic) standards. So, there's AES, NARTB (NAB), FFRR, COL, and others, and variations of them. Use tone controls to taste, and I use the surface noise on the LP beginning to adjust my tone controls by. When that noise sounds properly balanced, the rest of the music falls in line.