[78-L] The infamous HMV crackle

[Spats]

Hi!

I've always understood that what was added to the shellac was 
something like shale or slate, not fibre.
The reason? They were trying to save money, especially after the 1929 
crash. It had nothing to do with lowering surface noise.

Indeed...Remember, that most people were still using acoustic 
gramophones that didn't reproduce much of the higher frequency 
crackle noise, so crackle wasn't that important at the time.

Earl.

The story I've heard more than once is that HMV added
some type of fibers to their shellac mix, and this causes the
crackle.  Why did they add it?  Ironically, IIRC, the idea
was that it would lower surface noise!  Anyway, this is
the anecdotal answer.

Doug