[78-L] Soundstream Caruso sources.

[Michael Biel]

Thomas Stockham began the project completely independent of RCA in the
early 70s.  I agree with Michael Shoshani that most recordings seem to
be sourced from shellac pressings, not metals or vinyl test pressings. 
The REAL shocker is the one demo of the process where the comparison is
made to a copy that appears to have been used for 50 years as a paving
stone, but it is obvious that this is not the copy that was used for
processing.  

Mike Biel  mbiel at mbiel.com  


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [78-L] Soundstream Caruso sources.
From: Ryan Wolfe <nextset4 at yahoo.com>
Date: Thu, February 28, 2013 1:58 pm
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>

Yes, there is still plenty of surface noise on a lot of them.   But some
are really clean  and also have this slight metallic scrape that could
also be just the effect of the processing I suppose.


________________________________
 From: Michael Shoshani <michael.shoshani at gmail.com>
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com> 
Sent: Thursday, February 28, 2013 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [78-L] Soundstream Caruso sources.
 
On 02/28/2013 12:30 PM, Ryan Wolfe wrote:
> The Caruso subjects here have led to something that I have long been wondering about.
>
> What were the  sources used for the bulk of the Victor material in the 1976 Thomas Stockham / Soundstream restorations?
>
>  I've heard  that they used metal masters and I've heard that they  just used regular commercial pressings.  The CD box set claims 'Original Victor Talking Machine Co. Master Recordings.'
>


One would presume that even in the various purgings of metal parts over 
the decades that Victor and successors would have kept and preserved any

metals they had from Caruso. And if they didn't, certainly the metal 
parts that were sent to HMV would have been preserved.

That being said, there's so much scratch on the Soundstream versions 
that I'm almost 100% certain that they were sourced from commercial 
pressings.

Michael Shoshani