Thanks Steve. Interesting stuff !
Just picked up 2 books about the intro of the 45 from that era.
"The Fabulous Victrola "45" " - Vourtsis
which is more in-depth about the players from an RCA-centric perspective, but has a lot about the politics of the so called "speed wars".
And also
"45 RPM" - Dawson & Propes
subtitled "The History, Heroes & Villains of a Pop Music Revolution"
Massive, massive changes in that decade of late 40s to late 50s in music and how it was recorded and then marketed to the public.
We started the era with fairly LoFi 78s made essentially the way they had been since before WWII.
Beside the actual birth of FM as a consumer format (it hadn't caught on earlier) we had the whole tape revolution with Ampex etc., the HiFi mono feedback, then later, stereo disc cutting era began,improving fidelity greatly, and of course, the Lp and 45 introduced. By the mid 50s you had consumer stereo tape launching, then the stereo record in the late 50s, all of which conspired to give us sound by the end of that era that still holds up in its best case to today's standards. Some, in fact, like it better than a lot of today's sound !
We had the pop music shift from big labels / big artists / big orchestras and bands with vocalists and tin pan alley song writers to Jazz and Rock and Roll and the beginnings of small indie labels along the way as well.
I just uncovered this little gem in an attempt to find out exactly when the Westrex 2B mono HiFi feedback cutter came into use.
http://www.aes.org/aeshc/pdf/putnam_history-of-recording-studios.pdf
