Tom,
As with vinyl,the German pressings of the 30s and 40s were superior,even to their UK counterparts.I have a fair amount of both.The Telefunkens are incredible.
Most classical 78s I have seen have been very well cared for,often never played.
These films are great.I especially like the "How to listen" one.Of course,my first reaction was how sad it is there are no Munchs anymore >le sigh< I have never seen an RCA stand-alone amp,like the one seen at 4:01 in this clip.Once in a very rare while,I will see an older RCA amp,made for movie theaters.I had one once,circa 1943.I found it in a dumpster in 1988.Unfortunately,someone stole it from me when I was moving,a few years later. once.I had an RCA tube tape deck like that,and sold it on eBay,in 2005.
Roger
Tom Fine <tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: My friend and mentor Art Shifrin has demonstrated very convincingly how awful retail 78's sound
compared to metal parts and even "maker's mark choice compound" reference copies/test pressings. The
shellac compounds were usually terrible, and most used ones you buy today were played to death with
a rusty nail several decades ago. Definitely true that some companies' retail products had worse
compounds than others and the compounds improved and devolved over time and based on economics/raw
materials shortages.
With LPs, Bob O. pointed out that DJ pressings were usually good. Bob, do you think the same "for demonstration only" pressings sent to DJ's were also what was sold at a discount to NARAS members?
Here's a great film that RCA made showing their dearly departed Camden plant making shellac 78's, circa 1942: http://www.archive.org/details/CommandP1942
And speaking of RCA, here's their take on Living Stereo: http://www.archive.org/details/LivingSt1958
This one is a more extended movie about stereo, just before stereo LP's came out, showing briefly an
RCA recording session in Boston:
http://www.archive.org/details/HowtoLis1957
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Michael Shoshani"
To:
Sent: Monday, July 02, 2007 5:33 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] LP pressing question
Bob Olhsson wrote:
My experience has been that the very best pressings were the major label DJ copies. These were often better than test pressings due to an even higher grade of vinyl. The first manufacturing run was generally comparable to the test pressing however reorder runs were frequently done as quickly and cheaply as possible.
From the 78 RPM era, I've had record store demonstration copies from Victor, Columbia, and Decca,
that were pressed on really nice vinyl as opposed to ordinary shellac (or, in Decca's case,
asphalt with sand). I have no idea what sort of equipment dealers used to play these, but it would
seem to me that the thinking was that dealers needed really good copies to "show off" the record
being sold.
Michael Shoshani Chicago
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