MetroSonus wrote:So why does mine have that extra black arm on it then? what's that for?
Oh sorry, that vid didn't have that, did it? There are a bunch of utoobs that show it, but I picked that one because it was short. The hooky arm served two purposes: It prevented the stack of albums from wobbling around on the spindle, and, after the last record dropped, it told the the whole machine to turn off after that last record was finished.
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78 rpm records, whatever they were made of, were way thicker and heavier than 33s. I used to play them on my grand folk's cabinet Victrola, which was similar to this one, which my aunt still has:

They had Benny Goodman and teh Andrews Sisters and such. Classical too. It would play about three records before you had to wind it up again.
It was totally as ANALOG as you can get. Instead of the big horn right on top, though, the sound was trumpeted through a flexible coupling gizmo and down through the cabinet:

It sounded like authentic vintage ass.