Re: [ARSCLIST] National Recording Preservation Board (NRPB) Study

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mike Richter wrote:

 Tom Fine wrote:
 > Well, one question immediately comes to mind. Who CARES about 78's
 > issued after the advent of tape (1947-48), unless the tape master has
 > been lost? Even if only a good-condition LP exists (post-1948), it is
 > almost guaranteed to sound better and have a wider frequency/dynamic
 > range than the 78. So I ask again, who cares about what's gotta be the
 > vast majority of late-era 78's? I mean, they might make a nice novelty,
 > but they have little or no historical value since they're a
 > worst-case/obsolete-technology version of something.

 I could not understand this post until I realized that it assumes that
 all 78s issued after 1947 or so were also published on LP. Not so in my
 experience. In addition, while a transfer to LP may "sound better" in
 some sense, if the original issue was on 78 and the content is of value
 at all, the 78 is the primary (available) source.

 One may argue which source should be seen as primary when issues were
 concurrent in different formats (LP/45, LP/open-reel, ...).

 Finally, in cases where original tapes, metal parts or other earlier
 sources are available, they may or may not be primary and may or may not
 be appropriate to archive in some fashion.

 Mike
 --
 mrichter@xxxxxxx
 http://www.mrichter.com/


Matter of fact, this argument is ludicrous. The only good-sounding original 
issue of "South Pacific" was the 45-RPM set. The 78s are overmodulated, the 
first LP pressings sound like short wave, the subsequent ones keep adding 
layers of echo, the CD issues were a disaster, proving that Sony may own the 
rights and the original master but doesn't know its acetates from a hole in 
the ground about what to do with them. Anyone want to challenge me on this, 
meet me out back.

dl