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Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo LPs: subject to mononuclearosis?
Yes, I think Philips did do a discount crapo label in the mid-60's, mainly to issue some of their
old mono stuff in North America. Philips tried from Day One to establish a brand but they never
really did it here. I notice that the Philips classical label has been dormant since Universal
bought Polygram. London, Decca and DG continue to be active labels. The other one I could never
understand is why Sony killed off Columbia Masterworks -- a very well-established brand -- and
changed it to Sony Classics.
On the other hand, Philips did some really fine jazz records under their own brand, moving Jack
Tracy over from Mercury as soon as they took control. I'm speaking of the excellent Dizzy Gillespie
and Woody Herman records made in the early and mid-60s. And on their front-line (non-discount)
issues, Philips whipped some good pressing knowhow into the Mercury plants. As you probably know,
Mercury Living Presence was pressed by RCA due to Mercury's inability to meet the expected quality
levels. The jazz, unfortunately, was pressed in-house. Philips took the classical pressing in-house
by late 1964, but they did a better job of it. Many Mercury titles remained in print until the 70's.
In fact, I just bought a used copy of Quincy Jones' 1964 "Plays Henry Mancini." The label and vinyl
quality were early 70's Mercury, in excellent condition. Sound quality was very good indeed. Sleeve
material was that late 60's/early 70's non-laminated paper over cardboard, not the first-issue
litho/laminated stock Mercury used until about 1966.
One more Mercury tidbit I recently discovered. As stereo LPs were dawning, before the format reached
a mass-market, but while there was sudden new attention to high-fidelity, Mercury went back and
remastered and reissued the original MG5000 series mono records from the very early 50's. You can
tell these reissues if the record title is printed on the spine of the jacket and if the inner vinyl
is stamped either P followed by a number (for George Piros) or JJ for John Johnson. The vinyl will
also be more flexible than the 1951-53 thick/hard material. These versions generally sound superior
because RCA's pressing was fabulous by then and also because they were cut in real-deal RIAA curve
(early 50's Mercury were AES curve, which was close but not RCA's New Orthophonic, which became
RIAA). Also, the very first Mercury's, from 1951 and 1952, were before the excellent Miller cutter
head with 200 watts of McIntosh behind it was used. So the net-net was more dynamic cutting, quieter
vinyl, genuine RIAA curve and the album title on the spine. It also might be true, but I'm not 100%
on this, that the tapes were played back on Ampex tape decks, which had better playback specs than
the old Fairchilds.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lennick" <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 8:07 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo LPs: subject to mononuclearosis?
I remembered another "compatible" label from the same people, something like Philips World Series.
Cut
very low level, or maybe only the Canadian pressings had this problem.
dl
Tom Fine wrote:
Wing was also a recession-fighter, introduced during the early 60's downturn. The series was
discount price and cheaply packaged. Not all Mercury executives thought it was a good idea but
the
pop guys prevailed and the rack-jobbers loved it because they could stack 'em high and sell 'em
cheap. Simulated stereo was just a bad idea on all fronts, but it prevailed up into the 70s.
There
were some interesting experiments done in a better reprocess method, both at Columbia Studios and
at
Fine Recording. But it was costly -- book expensive studio time, set up an excellent full-range
speaker in a nice live room like the 30th St. studio of the Ballroom and then play the mono
material
thru the speaker and record a stereo pickup to a new master. It actually works very well,
especially
with recordings originally made close-mic'd or in a dead room. But it begs the question, why
bother.
Just enjoy a well-mixed mono presentation. Electronic reprocess of mono into psuedo-stereo is a
degradation 99+% of the time.
-- Tom Fine