Re: [ARSCLIST] Acostic playback

[Scott Phillips <scottp@xxxxxxxxx>]

It might be interesting if someone wrote plug-in filters for some of the
common DAW station software that mathematically reflected the
Orthophonic machines performance. This could be used, if not on the
final preservation data file, as a guide when cleaning up a recording.
One might have a better idea when to 'stop improving' the data if it was
used to help in that judgment. Perhaps some of the excesses might be
better avoided. As one who doesn't have a great deal of experience in
actually hearing the complete original playback chain, I would think it
would be useful to keep ones' 'bearings' sonically, in the same way that
multiple speaker systems do when listening to a mix...

...or does such software already exist and I slept through it... ? :>)

Scott Phillips

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
[mailto:ARSCLIST@xxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Steven Smolian
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2005 9:27 AM
To: ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ARSCLIST] Acostic playback

Karl's point about playing acoustic records back through the acoustic
machines on which they were intend to be heard is a good one.  However,
there are two arguments that torpedo it.

First is that what we hear is the sum of distortion introduced not only
by the playback horn and chain (tapered arm, etc.) but also that of the
one or ones used for recording as well as the characteristics of the
recording device.  The latter is, mostly unknowable at this stage.  It's
the old issue of problems being of a different magnitude where energy
changes occur rather than where they are amplified.

The other is that there was no mathematical understanding of the nature
of horns until the theory of matched impedance was uncovered in 1923 and
exploited in the design of the acoustical Orthophonic machines in 1924
(actual dates may vary by a year- I don't have my research data to
hand.)  Before then, all was guesswork- an "art" which led to varying
degrees of subjective sonic accuracy until then, none satisfactory, to
these ears.

Steve Smolian