When did record players stop being used and what were they replaced with?

11 Comments

1. L S says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   Record players "stopped" being used because casette tapes were considered more portable and easier to take with you and then CDs came on the market too.

   But actually, we have one just in front of where I'm sitting right now!! lol And we still use it. ;-D

   Back in the 70's, cassette tapes arrived on the market. In Australia, as near as I can remember because I was only 5 in 1970, an album on a cassette tape was $10 more expensive than records when tapes first came out. Then eventually (few years?) they came down to being $5 more expensive until by the time I was about 15 or so, they were equivalent in price to records, leading people like myself to buy those instead because it was more likely that your parents had bought you a portable cassette player for your birthday or perhaps a walkman. (When they first came out, no-one would have dreamed of asking what kind of walkman it was - it was obviously one that played tapes because they were the only kind of walkman around. In fact, I think Walkman was the *name* of the product put out by the first company to produce them which may have been Sony so really, no other company could have used the name - but you may want to check me on that with some online research.) Of course, you soon learnt that tapes wore out with a lot of playing, even if looked after carefully, and a record if properly looked after and the record player maintained as well, the record should be able to be played over and over without showing any noticeable sign of wear.

   Cassette tapes were an improvement on the tapes that we had used before that: reel-to-reel. With reel-to-reel, you had to manually thread the tape through the heads of the player from the loaded tape reel and then hook it through the slot of a blank reel. When you finished with it, you then had to rewind it which was done by taking the tape from the originally empty reel onto the one it came from but you didn't have to go via the heads this time. At least, that's my memory of it because they were slowly disappearing as I was growing old enough to be dexterous enough to do it myself - I think I only did it a few times. With a cassette tape, you just slipped it in and away you went. However, you soon found out that they could snarl far worse and more easily than reel-to-reel tapes and couldn't be stopped as quickly so a greater part of the tape would be ruined. In the middle of a tape, this led to parts of songs, etc. just being thrown away by cutting out that section of tape with scissors and rejoining the pieces that were left. Of course, that was if you were lucky enough to be able to "splice" it back together well enough for the player heads to be able to cope with it and that took steady hands and as little "transparent tape" (that grey sticky tape that comes off again fairly easily) as possible and it couldn't stick out beyond the "boundaries" of the tape edges.

   Reel tapes were also quite a lot bigger than cassette tapes so of course the player/recorder was as well.

   Then CDs arrived on the market. These were similar to records in that care of them meant they were quite long lived and could be played again and again, but like cassette tapes were more portable and less susceptible to damage if you did take them with you. This is what really led to records and record players starting to become less and less seen.

   Do you have anyone around you who is at least 50 or over who might have a record player? It could be worth asking if you can visit and have them show you the record player and some of their records. If they have one with a bad enough scratch on it, they can demonstrate the meaning of the phrase, "You sound like a broken record!" A badly scratched record means that the record player needle is likely to follow the scratch groove instead of the grooves on the record. If the scratch leads from an inner section of the record to an outer section, then the record player plays the same section of music or sound again and again… hence the saying.

   Hope you do okay with your project.

   EDIT:
   By the way, I actually heard very recently that records are still being made and sold; just not as many and I don't know who you would ask.
2. sexy_sponge34 says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   idk and cd players and radios
3. Cindy T says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   tape decks. and then cd players.
4. Jesus C says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   Replaced by CD players in the mid 1980s
5. theestud12 says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   im too old
6. The Golden Buffalo says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   records- 8 track- cassette tapes- CD’s- ipod
7. SantaCruzSK8 says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   they stopped using record players when my grandfather could still a boner.. they were replaced with tapes.
8. S S says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   They still are used, but LPs stopped being sold regularly in stores in the early 90’s.

   Cassettes were produced after LP’s, but they didn’t replace them, they weren’t phased out until CD’s came in (late 80’s).
9. Flat_out_Bob says:

   June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

   Believe it or not there starting to use them again. If the record is not scratched it’s sounds better than a cd.
10. goaheadnfireme says:

    June 26, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    They faded out around 1975 and were replaced with 8-Tracks. 8 tracks lasted just a few years and were replaced with cassettes.