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But as we got to the point where we were just about to announce the long-playing record, in an effort to enlist RCA's interest, I went over and had a meeting with Sarnoff and told him that I had something I wanted him to see--I couldn't bring it over to his office--and would he come over to have lunch with me in my private dining room at 485 Madison.
We had a very pleasant lunch, and as we got to the end of the lunch, I said: “I'd like to take you in my office and show you something, and perhaps we can have our coffee in my office.”
Sarnoff was a great cigar smoker, and so walked down the hall to my office. When we went in, I had a large cabinet of an RCA professional speaker system, and on the top of it I had a small turntable. Sarnoff saw it as he walked by, and as he sat down in the other corner of the office, on a banquette, to have coffee, he chided me about the fact that I had in my office an industrial-type speaker rather than the kind you would have in your living room.
Little did he know that that was by design, because I wanted to demonstrate the long-playing record on the best piece of RCA's equipment that anyone had. So I had our people go out and get one of their big theater-type speakers to have in my office, so that if there were any flaws in the long-playing record, you could hear it in that player.
So I got up, after coffee was served, and he was just in the process of biting off the end of his cigar--when I went over to take the needle and put it on the record, the record was already spinning. I put it down and came over, and the music came up--not loud, but just as background music. “Warsaw Concerto,” I think.
He sort of kept looking over, and I said: “Don't worry, Dave. It'll play a half-hour.”
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