[78-L] stereo, ca. 1932

[Doug Mackie]

On Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:41:01 -0500, you wrote:

>On Wed, 2009-07-08 at 18:34 +0100, lastofthebarons wrote:
>> There is, of course, the well known 3 Feb 1932 stereo recordings of   
>> Duke Ellington and His Orchestra by RCA Victor. What were previously  
>> thought to be two takes are in fact separate recordings of the same  
>> take, which provide the left and right channels. I don't know if the  
>> original intent was to produce a stereo  or whether the result was a  
>> lucky by-product of making two recordings in case one master was  
>> damaged. Whatever, the results speak for themselves.
>
>It was neither, actually. Victor was testing two different recording
>systems simultaneously. One recording used a Western Electric
>microphone, amplifier, mixer and cutting lathe, which were the current
>standard but which also incurred costly royalty payments. The other
>recording used a mic-amp-mixer-lathe chain developed by RCA, and was a
>test to see if the quality was equal. (Apparently, it was not; RCA
>equipment came into use two or three years later, its usage signified by
>the letters VE enclosed within a diamond rather than an ellipse.)
>
>Michael Shoshani

Actually, the diamond goes back earlier than that.  RCA was recording with
both RCA and Western Electric equipment by 1931, and the marks in the wax
reflect this.  For example, I have RCA "program transcriptions" from that
year, some marked with the oval and some with the diamond.  In addition to
the shape of the mark, a "VE" in a program transcription matrix number
prefix indicated Western Electric equipment, and an "RC" indicated RCA
gear.  The RC matrices that I have from late 1931 sound better than the VE
sides from that time.  So whatever the reason for maintaining parallel
systems, I doubt that it was because of inferior sound quality from the
RCA system.

Regards,
Doug Mackie
Princeton NJ