rusty wrote:
what were the factors to release an album at 7.5 i.p.s?


If the artists had a lot of clout in the music business, and were
popular- and had strong management- and cared about the quality of
their recordings sold to the public- they could demand a 7.5 IPS reel,
or they'd take their business elsewhere

that's about it- otherwise, it was the music co's choice- and they
would degrade to 3.75 IPS to save on tape costs

bands with clout often made demands on recording co's- ignoring their
other personal and inspirational failings, the reason a lot of Led
Zeppelin 8-track tapes have huge spaces of blank tape at the ends of
many tracks- is because Zep didn't want songs cut in half during the
program switch- so they made the music co. eat some blank tape on every
8-track sold- some of those blank sections are minutes long !