[78-L] Acoustic v. radio

Donna Halper dlh at donnahalper.com.invalid
Wed Jan 13 08:09:10 PST 2016


On 1/13/2016 8:20 AM, Elizabeth McLeod wrote:
> The carbon microphones of the twenties had a thin sound, with fair midrange,
> comparatively little bass, and a noticeable hiss. Listening to a broadcast
> originating from such a microphone on a regenerative receiver, thru
> high-impedance metal-diaphragm headphones, was not too far removed from the
> sound quality you'd get on a telphone. A horn speaker used the same type of
> receiver element as the headphones, and introduced horn resonances to the
> mix.
>    
But I have read newspaper and magazine articles critical of female radio 
announcers and female vocalists (especially sopranos), because allegedly 
the microphone distorted their voice. Any truth to that, or was it just 
a reflection of cultural prejudice against female voices?


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