[78-L] Columbia classics

[David Lennick]

My theory has long been that Victor and Columbia each made records that would 
sound like ratsh*t on the other's player. Big mid-range hump on each, but never 
in the same place. Then you had some Capitols c. 1947 that had wide treble and 
wide bass and NO mid-range, assuming you could hear anything through the 
surface noise (boy did their DJ vinyls sound wonderful..CD quiet).

dl

Royal Pemberton wrote:
> Did they have some kind of dynamic expansion taking place in some of their
> models?  Some of their pop records around that time sound like hell
> too....check out 'Good bait' by Dizzy Gillespie's ork on 20-2878....they
> just did not know how to cope with all the percussion (Chano Pozo et al) Diz
> had going on.
> 
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:09 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca>wrote:
> 
>> Yeah, Victor had a very distinctive "sound" around 1946. The odd thing is
>> that
>> they made players that compensated for it. I heard a 1946 vintage table
>> model
>> player and "Managua, Nicaragua" was played on it, and the damn thing
>> sounded great.
>>
>> Nothing's as horrible as Victor's first post-ban Red Seals, like the Boston
>> Pops "Salute to Our Fighting Forces" and the "Oklahoma" album, all full of
>> wow
>> and distortion and more wow. I think they were going through 3 stages of
>> dubs
>> for a while (Ted Hering confirms as much in his discographical notes to
>> Jack
>> Myrtle's Spike Jones Bio-Discography).
>>
>> dl
>>
>> Royal Pemberton wrote:
>>> I've not heard many classicals by either Columbia or Victor, but of what
>> few
>>> I've heard the worst sound I've found was on some 1940s Victors, where
>> they
>>> went OTT with limiters and as a result, massed ensemble passages are a
>>> congested mess.
>>>
>>> On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 3:15 AM, David Lennick <dlennick at sympatico.ca
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Michael Biel wrote:
>>>>> From: samhopper at mail.com
>>>>>> I totally disagree with your comments re: Columbia orchestra
>> recordings.
>>>>>> After writing 250 pages of my pet project - the Columbia Masterworks
>> 78
>>>>>> rpm discography and having listened to hundreds of Col. recordings -
>>>>>> I can say that there are countless excellent electrical recordings
>>>>>> released by Columbia of US orchestras!
>>>> http://masterworks.gramophile.com/
>>>>> And that discography is coming along great.  I will be providing
>>>>> additional info and photos in a little while.  I have 4 or 5 of the
>>>>> first dozen of the acoustical albums.  And yesterday I finally got a
>>>>> chance to see and photograph the Kosty-Godfrey Peter and the Wolf MM
>>>>> 1034.  Didn't get to listen to them to compare with the LPs.  I think
>>>>> these past two weeks I have solidified my worldwide reputation as that
>>>>> guy who comes to sound archives to look at the records instead of
>>>>> listening to them.
>>>>>
>>>>> From: DAVID BURNHAM <burnhamd at rogers.com>
>>>>>>> When Sony issued the Mitropolous recording of Mahler's 1st Symphony
>>>>>>> and some Bruno Walter recordings by NYPO, they proved there was a
>>>>>>> lot more quality tucked away in the master grooves than was ever
>>>>>>> evident on the issued 78s.
>>>>> I think these were reprocessed by Seth Winner, and he gave an ARSC
>>>>> presentation about these.  Considering playback equipment in the 40s
>> was
>>>>> not anything at all like we now have, it is obvious that the dubbed 78s
>>>>> can not compare.  It has been my experience that the sound quality of
>>>>> different transfers to the 78s can sound vastly different.  I noticed
>>>>> that many decades ago when comparing two copies of one of the Rathbone
>>>>> dramas, and this has led me to check every alternate copy I've come
>>>>> across to see if the numbers are different.
>>>>>
>>>>> Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com
>>>>>
>>>> I believe the Mahler 1 was transferred from lacquers that had not
>>>> previously
>>>> been used as source material. Dave Burnham is correct that many Columbia
>>>> orchestral recordings are bloody awful in their 78 incarnations. My
>>>> experience
>>>> is that the earliest ones, in late 1939, may have been direct 78 cuts
>> with
>>>> 33RPM safeties being made simultaneously but that they switched to 33rpm
>>>> originals as sources not long after, necessitating dubs. Rodzinski's
>>>> "Scheherazade" and Tchaikovsky 5th sound fabulous on early 78 pressings.
>>>> Columbia's recordings of the Minneapolis Symphony from the same period
>> are
>>>> shrill and unlistenable. The Mahler 1 on 78s has a climax that sounds
>> like
>>>> a
>>>> car crash and for some reason, later pressings were never made from new
>>>> transfers but from the original 1941 dubs. I've never listened to
>> "Karma".
>>>> Their late 20s recordings of Damrosch and the New York Symphony are no
>>>> great
>>>> hell either but no worse than Brunswicks, and Victor made some pretty
>> bad
>>>> orchestral recordings in those days as well, like the Detroit Symphony
>>>> records
>>>> under Gabrilowitsch where they used a portable cutter that fluttered
>> when
>>>> large
>>>> waxes were placed on it.
>>>>
>>>> Columbia also had some pretty mediocre playback equipment in the early
>> 40s,
>>>> and
>>>> there's a Music & Arts CD that has a photo of Leopold Stokowski
>> listening
>>>> to
>>>> one of his playbacks and probably re-equalizing the living daylights out
>> of
>>>> it.
>>>> Wonder if it was Cowell's "Tales of Our Countryside"?
>>>>
>>>> dl
>>>>
>>>> _______________________