[78-L] Acoustic v. radio

[Elizabeth McLeod]

I think a high, thin soprano coming over a carbon microphone thru a
headphone or horn speaker is probably going to sound a lot tinnier than a
baritone or a bass, so if that's what they meant by distortion there might
be some truth to it. I think it's significant that the women who were most
popular on the air in the twenties for their speaking voices, people like
Rosaline Green or Elsie Janis were contraltos.

This wasn't so much an issue later on, though -- by the end of the twenties
Jessica Dragonette was one of the most popular women on the air, and just
about everyone seems to have enjoyed her voice.


On 1/13/16 11:09 AM, "Donna Halper" <dlh at donnahalper.com> wrote:

> 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?