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From: srchtec!johnb@gatech.edu (John Baldwin)
Newsgroups: rec.audio.high-end
Subject: split stylus
Message-ID: <8035@uwm.edu>
Date: 3 Dec 90 23:02:40 GMT
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Originator: tjk@csd4.csd.uwm.edu

The only "stereo" records you are likely to stuble across which are
not compatible with modern stereo cartridges are the Cook "Binaural"
records.  They were played with a forked tonearm (a variant on the
Fairchild 280, I think) and two mono cartridges (left and right!).  I
presume that the two channels were never really in phase.  They are
numbered in the BN1000 series, many are 10".  There never was a forked
stylus. 

There are also a few very rare Sudgen records from England that were
cut with V-L (vertical-lateral) stereo (left horizontal, right
vertical).  These would require matrixing the signals from the
cartridge.  (Left was horizontal because that is where the voilins
are, and the horizontal channel had better freqency response.
Similarly, AM-FM stereo had FM on the left and AM on the right, for
the same reason.  AM-FM stereo was an abomination that died a
deserving death in 1962.)

The only "must" about playing on a stereo cartridge is that old mono
cartridges had zero vertical compliance, and would wear out (ruin) a
stereo record real quick.  Later, low frequency mono blending to
reduce the vertical excursions of the grooves "solved" this problem
(at a sonic penalty).

Those records of your mothers may be worth a pretty penny.  It depends
on condition, age, and content.  The Boston Pops ones won't fetch as
much as the Fritz Reiners.  That Magnavox probably tracked at 5 grams,
and may have had a worn out stylus much of the time.

Footnotes:

As Harry Pearson noted for us young folks, Cook was the "Sheffield" of
the 50's.  The choice of music (or sounds) to recorded was quite
ecclectic (symphonic to guitar to steel band to burlesque).  They were
the demo records you saw at the Hi-Fi salons in the 50's.  They were
cut at levels that most 50's cartridges rapidly wore into a pulp, so
almost all copies are hopelessly worn today.

Yes, that is the same Fairchild that wound up as a semiconductor
company, they made tonearms, amplifiers, even oscillating sanders in
the 50's!  (I have one of each.)  They were "Fairchild Camera and
Instrument" back then.