[78-L] 78 rpm bandwidth

[Royal Pemberton]

How true.   It's a shame how that fact, coupled with marketing forces,
drove at least some labels to 'dumb down' the quality of their
recordings.  This is why you sometimes find things like electric
Gennetts that are virtually inaudible (thinking of a Bradley Kincaid
on Silvertone I have, sourced from Gennett, that is like this,
recorded 6 to 8 dB too low), or the numerous RCA items, especially
from 1938 onward, with that strangled, boxed-in character to them.

Earlier Victor/Bluebird/et al items made with the RCA gear on occasion
are stunning with respect to both dynamic range and extension of high
frequency response, going up to at least 8500 Hz on some of them.  But
for about 10 years they were cut off fairly sharply at around 7000 Hz,
and sometimes brutally limited in dynamics.

It seems like around 1947 or 1948 the highs began to return to their
records little by little, and gradually they started backing off on
the brute-force limiting a few years alter.

On 5/27/09, joe at salerno.com <jsalerno at earthlink.net> wrote:
> It seems to be a constant factor in recorded sound. Up until a certain
> point in history, relatively recent at that, the hard part of the chain
> is reproducing recorded sound, less so to record it. PB technology has
> always been the limiting factor, not the recording technology.
>
> joe salerno
>
>
> David Lennick wrote:
>> In fact, bass instruments are audible on Stokowski's first acousticals,
>> but
>> they couldn't be heard on playback instruments of 1917 so they were
>> omitted
>> from the orchestra for the rest of the acoustical era and into the first
>> few
>> months of electricals. I'm amazed that some of those earliest recordings,
>> like
>> Stoky's Marche Slav and the Victor Symphony Orchestra's "Petite Suite"
>> (Bizet),
>> were still in print in the mid 40s..probably kept there by the educational
>>
>> department, not by music lovers.
>>
>> dl
>>
>> I. Cubillo wrote:
>>> From: "DAVID BURNHAM" <burnhamd at rogers.com>
>>>> As far as acoustics are concerned they, of course, don't have the same
>>>> low
>>> end >content as even the earliest electrical recordings but I did find
>>> years
>>> ago, when >playing with a parametric equalizer, I was able to exhort
>>> substantial bass from a >Stokowski/Philadelphia recording, I think it was
>>> the Prelude to Act I of Carmen.
>>>
>>>> db
>>> I agree with David on the acoustics... the bass is not as poor as one
>>> could
>>> believe. The trouble with the acoustics, roughly, is the lack of
>>> definition
>>> in the treble, and the peak at 1000Hz, which is sometimes a bit
>>> disturbing.
>>>
>>>
>>> Iñigo Cubillo
>> _______________________________________________
>> 78-L mailing list
>> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
>> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> 78-L mailing list
> 78-L at klickitat.78online.com
> http://klickitat.78online.com/mailman/listinfo/78-l
>