I need to get a 78 RPM record transferred to digital format. Can anyone recommend a place to go in the Los Angeles, CA area that can do this?

You could record it with 45 rpm (or even 33 rpm) from a standard turntable and speed it up digitally afterwards. That may also help to get the best out of the disc as it is read slower.

However I'm unsure if RIAA equalization is applied wrongly in that case.

It is applied incorectly, unless you're game enough to attempt a flat transfer.

Well, I believe there is also the problem of the correct type of needle/cartridge for the 78 grooves, right? I don't think you can use a standard LP needle.

Yeah, you also need a special stylus. 3 mil spherical is the usual choice I think. You probably don't need a special eq curve to play 78s as the frequency response was generally all over the place to begin with. Any obvious eq flaws can be corrected digitally.

If you have to roll your own, the AT PL-120 I keep yammering about has a 78 speed. Combine that with a Shure 78 cart and you're looking at a shade over $200 from Amazon. (FWIW, no, I have not listened to the turntable or the cart.)

You might consider looking for a library nearby that still has a vinyl music collection; they might have a 78 player you could use.

Correct. The groove in a 78 is wider and the stylus is larger. Most turntables with 78 RPM settings had a two-sided 'flip-over' stylus. Some higher-end (i.e. magnetic) cartridges had an optional 78 stylus that required you to remove-and-replace the stylus standard stylus when playing 78s.

I assume you've tried the yellow pages... If you can find a company that does vinyl-to-CD transfers, they should be able to do 78 as well as 45 & 33. Or, you might check with some places that do VHS-to-DVD transfer or film-to-DVD transfer... If they can't do it, maybe they know somebody who can.

And as a "last resort", you can still buy record players that play 78s. (You might be able to find a cheap one on eBay, and that might be the way to go if you're only going to use it once.) Most of the new ones I've seen for sale are rather low-end (cheap), but you'd probably get better results than using your high-quality 33/45 player (I'm assuming you have one). Heartland sells an all-in-one tabeltop stereo with a 78RPM record player and a CD recorder. (Heartland sends me their mail-order catalog, but I've never ordered from them.)

Interesting. Could you elaborate on what you mean by "use"?
I know UCLA has an extensive collection of old records. I've listened to some there before.

Heh. You'll have to define that "use" yourself.

Certainly you could just haul a laptop in and connect the headphone out to your sound card line in.

If you decide to buy a turntable and tackle the job yourself, you may find this information on equalisation parameters handy.

Cheers, Slipstreem.

Somewhat off topic, but where are they? I haven't run across them while wandering through the huge library system thus far. A few years ago(2, 3?) even the cassette playback in the study rooms was with some pretty high end cassette decks(although I'm not sure if they kept them aligned) and discreet headphone amps, so I wouldn't put it past them to have a decent playback system.

I might be game for doing this myself if a 78 RPM cartridge or stylus can be had for less than the price of taking the record somewhere to be transferred professionally.

The two turntables I have currently are a Technics SL-B20, and a Technics SL-D2. Both have some pitch problems. The B20 probably needs another new belt (I replaced it before once but never was happy with the pitch stability with the replacement belt), and the D2 might do OK if I can clean the pitch control mechanism with contact cleaner. But either of those fixes would be pretty cheap.

The B20 uses P-Mount, and the D2 I think uses a more traditional type of cartridge, I don't recall (it is at my father's house right now).

Would either of these turntables accept a 78 RPM stylus of some sort?

I can't imagine that's the case for one disc!

There are plenty of services around - you'll have to post your record though. Most of these services offer advice on posting 78rpm discs - it can be done.

This seems good:
http://www.audio-restoration.com/

This has always looked terrible to me:
http://lp2cd.com/
Their old samples were terrible, but I haven't downloaded their new samples.

They also have an "audiophile" version:
http://avconvert.com/audio/index.html

EDIT: I have never used these services - these are not recommendations, just examples.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
David.

I do not want to ship the record. The person that I'm doing this for is in NYC, and I'm in LA. He has a 78 turntable and could do the transfer himself, so if I were going to ship it anywhere, I'd just ship it to him.

But we both agree that the old record is too fragile that it isn't worth the risk. I just want to find a place here locally that will do this with some degree of competence. I thought I'd just ask here before checking the yellow pages, (or Googling) to see if I could get any personal recommendations for a place in LA.