bedouin wrote:A lot of it has to do with how 45s were stored. Most people (like my mother) never kept them in their sleeves. They were treated with less care usually.
Second issue, many 45s aren't actually made of vinyl -- but a kind of plastic that wears out easily.
Third, since 45s are 7" -- if your cartridge isn't aligned properly you can experience inner groove distortion virtually from start to end.
Fourth, if you want more than 3 minutes on a 45 you have to make the grooves very close together; this kills sound quality and is part of the reason the 12" was introduced.
Fifth, many 45s were played over and over with cheap styli. This made them sound crappy, especially considering most cartridge are misaligned and were damaging the grooves each time it was played.
Sixth, 45s were the medium of choice in jukeboxes -- and as you might imagine, a 45 of a popular song, say -- "Billie Jean" would have been played 1000s of times potentially. 45s from radio stations would have similar abuse.
Nevertheless, I love digging for 45s. They're compact and cheap. And most of your weird rarities will be on 45 since they were inexpensive to release.
word!!
most of the time you find 45's out of the sleeve,there all trashed,those are the ones you stay away from inless it's something that you know you cant find or is hard to find.
