Curious record side labeling

It's really amazing me that this is such a surprise! I guess I'm showing my age.

Normal people who played records back in their heyday wanted some level of convenience. Automatic start and stop and record changers in particular were the norm by far. Most were very cheap and made for mass consumption, but that was the norm. Dual is the only brand I recall that made decent quality changers. I still have mine, a Dual 1264 in my second system. It is serviceable but not up to snuff for most audiophile vinyl affectionados. I do not recall any changers that were much better. CDs took convenience to the next level. Now, music servers take it further. And performance need not suffer along the way.

Act,

There is a nice article on record changers on wikipedia. It seems to
indicate changers bdcame common in the us from the 50s through the
seventies with bsr dominating the market. Thats consistent with my
recollection growing up during that time. Convenience of cds did them in
though single play manual turntables obviously survived. Dual, garrard
and telefunken made changers in europe it seem but perhaps less
common there than in us brand console and integrated systems that were
quite common back then. Bic was another popular mid fi brand that
made changers that took mm cartridges. Most bsr and similar mass
produced changers took lower performance, high tracking force ceramic
carts that were responsible for a lot of wear on many records in us homes
back then.

No doubt vinyl today is valued for its sound quality and most things revolve around that. Well, maybe album art and some enjoy physically interacting more with their recordings than digital usually permits.

But from the 50-70's, when vinyl and apparently also changers were king, it was more about musical selection and convenience. That's what most people played records for. Audiophile type users were a very small minority.

Neat how times change.....