Hi Tom,
I really don't know how to address something like this.This is an argument I have heard for years,from advocates of CDs,and newer mediums,going back to Stereophile,and The Absolute Sound,back in the mid-80s.Those who make this argument,are usually engineering geeks,who trot out a lot of graphs,and mathematical computations,that have nothing to do with the way the human brain naturally processes sounds.
How then do you explain the reluctance of many rock artists,and producers to record digitally,or the indie rock analogue boom/revival,in the 90s ?
As you may be aware the interest in both electrically recorded classical 78s,and pre-stereo classical Lps,has been on a steady uptick,since the mid-1990s.The eBay prices keep creeping upwards,and there are gradually fewer and fewer on the market.A lot of relatively common pre-1956 classical Lps routinely sell in the $25.00 range.I can't speak for 2007,but from roughly 1995-2001,this was due to the parallel rise in the popularity,of single-ended triode amplification,and the UK/ Japanese reissue boom,of CDs,mastered directly from 78s,or early Lps.CDs made with no real alteration at all.I knew things had turned a corner,in 1999,when Listener Magazine,ran a cover story,called "MONOLITHIC".The cover shows a pile of coverless Lps,with a pre-1955 Red Seal Lp on the top.This issue had a list of their favorite,mono Lps,at the time.This included rare pieces,like the first Commodore Billie Holiday Lp,as well as the likes of the Toscanini Pines/Fountains,and the Bruno Walter /Nathan
Milstein Mendelssohn on Columbia ML4001.This was when pre-stereo classical Lps,at one time common as dirt,began disappearing from thrift stores where I live.There haven't really been any for about 3-4 years,and it was not uncommon for me to buy 20-40 at a clip.I now really regret passing up those duplicate Westminsters,British pressed Angel monos,etc. .
The Gramophone collector magazines helped,too.They were the ones,who first put forth the notion,that the golden age of classical recording,covered the period, of roughly 1925-65.This would be from the period of electrically recorded 78s,to the beginning of solid-state recording.A view I heartily endorse.
Again it gets back to making a buck,and filling in demand where it exists.People are willing to spend $150-175 and up,for Walter Baryilli,or Vienna Concerthaus Quartet Lps on red Westminster,or $75 for an original mono Decca/London Clemens Krauss Lp,or $40 for 1940s Telefunken 78 singles.They wouldn't be,if these records didn't have their own special merit,and provided something you couldn't get on a reissue CD.
Roger Kulp
Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Hi Steven:
Actually, what's happened historically has been that when a better sound medium comes along, the
older musical styles get redone or revived in the new medium, to a certain extent. Louis Armstrong
and Duke Ellington -- acoustic 78's, electric 78's, mono LP, stereo LP and the master tapes from the
LPs reissued on CD with no LP limitations on fidelity. Armstrong and Ellington recorded their
essential repertoire several times over, each in a higher fidelity medium. So what about Bix (used
as an example because he died long before better fidelity came along)? Therein is your argument. But
Bix has been preserved and in fact enhanced in later reissues as technology got better. And when
someone today goes and buys a Bix CD, unless he has the worst listening system around, he's
guaranteed a better listening experience that getting that flawed-from-the-factory scratchy and
noisy shellac, putting it on his acoustic Victrola and hearing a tiny piece of the audible spectrum
blasting out of his horn. But maybe the awful sound out of the tinny horn is part of the
"experience"? BTW, I'm using jazz examples just because that's what I know. I could cite Muddy
Waters (Lomax field recordings, same material recorded later in mono hifi and then later again in
stereo) or a bunch of Classical conductors and orchestras who were active in the 78 era and then had
a Golden Age of Recording starting with the transition to LP and then getting all the way up into
the 70's in some cases, all the way to digital for a few. Point is, again, that commercially viable
stuff gets preserved, rehashed, redone and then reissued and enhanced. If there's a buck to be made,
it gets done.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message -----
From: "Steven C. Barr(x)"
To:
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Libraries disposing of records
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Fine"
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
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