Re: [ARSCLIST] Libraries disposing of records

[Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Roger:

Curious ... how much actual fact do you know about "the way the human brain naturally processes 
sounds"? I read many opinions and few facts in your post, which is pretty much par for the course 
from the anti-science/anti-progress crowd. Believe me, you are not alone in our society today. You 
have many friends in all facets of government and higher education. I'll take the science over 
psychobabble and hooey any day of the week. And I can certainly say that the way MY human brain 
naturally processes sounds prefers accuracy and lack of distortion so you'll never see me gathering 
around ye olde tin horns or seeking out a primative representation of sound (I wouldn't call those 
early formats "recordings" by any definition that strives for output=input) if there is anything 
cleaner and clearer available. To this human brain's sound-processing engine, music is beautiful 
when it's clear and sounds like, well, music.

-- Tom Fine

PS -- I'm not about to argue -- so don't twist my words as meaning -- that we've yet found a perfect 
sound-recording system. You can get close to "right there" but not all the way home, although I'd 
argue we're on an "audio taper" curve and we're maybe twice as close as the dawn of tape recording 
and maybe 10x closer than any time before tape, 100x closer than Edison cylinders. And remember I'm 
still talking recording. Playback is a whole other, further-behind, area.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roger and Allison Kulp" <thorenstd124@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, January 06, 2007 3:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Libraries disposing of records


> 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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