> I think it was a greater feat of great engineering to squeeze
> fantastic sound out of ANY grooved medium, particularly 78's, than to
> put out a clearly-audible recording using modern means. Alas, the
> skill set has slipped so badly that many modern recordings are
> horrible. Think of a band, producer and engineer working with the
> requirement of live takes, a set time limit imposed by the disk
> medium, very primative recording equipment (maybe 3 or 4 ribbon mics,
> a mixer with no EQ and limited patching) and the known fact that the
> result will lose 2 or 3 generations of quality by the time it gets
> into the consumer's hand. That's the 78 era. Now think of all the
> luxury of non-linear time, overdubs, computer-screen editing and tools
> like pitch correction and it's very depressing how bad the end product
> is in most cases today. And I'm not even talking about the basic lack
> of musical talent.
Why would a 78 lose three or four generations of quality? The production
disc is a directly moulded copy of the original, without going through a
tape generation.