45 RPM: The 7-inch Single

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 29 Oct 2007 at 8:41 PM

I was in the record store the other day buying a record. There were a whole bunch of promotional CDs on the counter with a label by them that said “free CDs.” I didn’t ask about the CDs, but when I went to the sales counter, the guy said that they were cleaning house, and off of a shelf behind him, he selected some 7” vinyl singles (that is, the 45 RPM) off of various stacks and handed them to me. The four singles he gave me were some new solo work by Siouxsie Sioux (of Siouxsie & the Banshees fame), a new single from the Foo Fighters, and a couple of other bands I wasn’t familiar with.

I must admit I’ve never been one for 45 singles. I’ve owned a few over the years. Some good, and some bad. But I’ve long since gotten rid of whatever ones I had. In fact, I don’t even have a 45 adapter to play singles with the wide hole at the center. I noticed that three of the discs had small holes in the center like that on a regular LP. No adapter necessary. But one of the discs had the traditional wide hole at the center. I know the record store sellers plastic puck adapters for a couple of bucks. That’s all you really need to do the job.

I decided to look online at the Needle Doctor and see what they offered. The 45 RPM adapters were a little sub-category on the audio accessories page. At the very bottom end is those plastic inserts that you keep permanently on the record. A pack of 10 costs $2.00. Also at the bottom end is the plastic puck that I’ll be purchasing locally for $2.99. But you go up from there in price, and you can select a shiny metal puck. A Stanton metal 45 adapter puck will run you $10. Stanton is known for cheap Technics-imitating turntables. The Technics metal puck costs $15, but if you already have a Technics turntable, this came with the table. At the high end is a stainless steel puck from clearaudio that runs $40. Forty bucks seems a little pricey, and hopefully if you spent several thousand dollars for a clearaudio turntable that they threw one of those buggers in the box.

It’s quite an array of choices for something as simple as a 45 RPM adapter. By writing this blog entry, I’ve clearly shown that I’ve thought about this far more than I should have. But I just thought it funny that Needle Doctor had such an impressive array of such a trivial thing. It just seems strange too that I should have gotten four promotional 7” records at the record shop in 2007. I mean, who is the intended market. I worked in college radio twice – in the early ’90s and at the cusp of 2000, and most record companies had either discarded vinyl for the most part or were in the process. So do they send promotional 45s to radio stations? Or were these purely meant as giveaways at the retail level?

And I must admit that the local record shop has an impressive array of 45 singles. I don’t look through them much because 45s are pretty much a pain in the ass, but there are some startling releases on the 7” vinyl format. I recently saw a box set of 45 RPMs from Coldplay that ran about $80. I guess some people love 45s. I don’t.

Tags: 45 rpm · 7-inch · adapter · single · vinyl

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