----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine" <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
At the risk of offending some on list, I have to offer a reality check, in
line with Bob's posting.
Guys, 78's are a real FRINGE/NICHE. Anything with any remote chance of "mass
market" is out on CD or
iTunes. Most people -- myself included -- just don't like bad quality sound.
Yes, there are some 78
reissues where they went back to metal parts and used tasteful, effective and
sound-improving
digital restoration, and it's great that modern life offers that wonderful
music in a
better-than-original mass-market format. But those shellac disks, they're just
a novelty nowadays,
in most but not all cases. Now, that said, of course I'll grab a pile from the
curbside if the music
is anything I'm remotely interested in because I like to play the Victrola for
my nieces and nephews
to show them "ye olde sound equipment". But I limit my 78 "collection" to one
milk crate and I'd
heave it first if I got in a space crunch. Edison cylinders -- I'm really glad
UCSB has that archive
online but I can't see how anyone would listen to that stuff for enjoyment. It
sounds worse than a
phone call over the Internet from Europe! But, back to my main point, if
there's a profitable market
for something, it finds its value and there apparently is no market for most
78's.
Probably true...and certainly defensible as a personal opinion...BUT...
The comment, distilled to its actual inherent statement, becomes:
"Each improvement in sound (or, in theory, ANY form if) recording
automatically makes all previous recordings made with older forms
of technology no longer worth preserving or even accessing!"
Aside from the one essential question of "Is any standard-variety
digital recording by definition superior to every analog recording"...?!
The point is that as each form of (sound) recording appeared, a
certain number of recordings were made that could not, under any
circumstances not involving time travel, ever again have been made.
Since the art of "improving" (in the sense of trying to recreate
what one assumes the original sounded like) is, so far, still in
a highly theoretical position...this suggests that our listener
can never satisfactorily access these historic recordings, and
is thus limited to recordings of the last two decades or so.
In my own case, I'm willing to tolerate the surface noise and
reduced fidelity inherent in shellac "78's"...even acoustic ones...
in return for hearing the recorded music of that era...!
Steven C. Barr