[78-L] Groove spacing - groove width

[Royal Pemberton]

Those very first Stokowski Victors have bass going down to roughly 70-80 Hz
due to his using string basses on the recordings.  They didn't do that on
later recordings most likely because they didn't work out they'd recorded
at all, as whatever they auditioned test pressing on cut off at more like
200 Hz.  I wonder what people thought the first time they heard one of
those first Stokowski acoustics years later on Orthophonic acoustic or
electric machines....

On Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 9:35 PM, Ron L'Herault <lherault at verizon.net.invalid
> wrote:

>
> I suspect that since acoustics didn't have much bass, whatever improvement
> that came via Orthophonic playback was considered phenomenal.
>
> Ron L
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ron [mailto:roscoer at verizon.net]
> Sent: Saturday, November 19, 2016 10:18 AM
> To: '78-L Mail List'
> Cc: MOCAPS-L at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: RE: [78-L] Groove spacing - groove width
>
> Weren't the first Vitaphone movie discs issued in 1926?  I believe the
> first
> Vitaphone movies were shorts, but that in 1926 "Don Juan" was a silent film
> issued with a Vitaphone sound track comprised only of music and sound
> effects, no dialogue.
>
> Also, if some sort of low frequency attenuation wasn't used, then the
> amplitudes of low frequencies would have required their attenuation to keep
> the groove spacing down.  I believe that they saw their options in 1925 as
> either 1. attenuate the bass or 2. provide a constantly wide groove that
> would have accommodated the lowest frequency on the new Orthophonic records
> [50 Hz].  The constant wide groove would have required a 12" diameter disc
> to hold what was previously held on a 10" acoustic disc.
> So the attenuation won out.
>
> I personally have been very amazed that no corresponding bass boost on
> playback was ever provided in the earliest electrical playback equipment
> such as the Victrola 10-51 electrically amplified record changer.
>
>
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