Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

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Wolfe
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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by Wolfe »

Laquer = Condensite varnish ?

The varnish was sprayed not painted.

Diamond Discs are funny. You can thoerize about things, but there's one person who knows and he's been dead since '31.

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marcapra
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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by marcapra »

Larry, You don't say what serial number, or if this was a black etched label record or not? Which version of Spring, Beautiful Spring was this? Was it 52068 by Joe Green and his Marimba Band, or the electric 52491 by The Edison Concert Orchestra? Spring, Beautiful Spring is a waltz by the Berlin composer Carl Paul Linke, the same guy who wrote Glow Little Glow Worm Glimmer from a 1902 operetta. Your theory of damp storage causing outer surface noise is discussed in Copeland and Sherman's Collector's Guide to Edison Records c. 2012.

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by larryh »

I should have given the number at the start. It is the Peerless Orchestra version white label 80700. A number which often is reasonably quiet. I have it here on the dock of the computer but haven't moved it to import in my Acousticedison you tube channel. I will in the next day or so no doubt. Doing over many of the records I put up twice before is an undertaking that is a bit overwhelming.

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marcapra
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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by marcapra »

Larry, just want to say that I for one really appreciate the work you have done on Youtube for Edison DDs! You make many DD's that would otherwise be totally obscure, available to audition. According to my Ray Wile Edison Disc Recordings Book II of II c. 1978, DD 80700 side L, Spring Beautiful Spring was recorded on 5/1922. Copeland and Sherman have a lot to say about the records made between 12/1921 and 8/1923. This was when the company changed the formula of the Edison Diamond Disc cores from a wood flour and phenol resin to 85% China clay, 15% linseed oil, and a touch of cotton flock and phenol resin. So records made from the new formula are mostly noisier than records made from May/1921 to December/1921, or to DD's made after 8/1923. You'll have to read the book to get the detailed answers to this, but this new formula produced a record that was more vulnerable to water damage, so depending on how they were stored, this range of DDs sound noisier today than when they were new. (Collector's Guide to Edison Records by Copeland and Sherman, c. 2012, Monarch Record Enterprises).

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by larryh »

Marc,

I have never seen that book, it might be interesting reading for sure with such details about the recording process. Thanks for your support of my efforts to record many records which otherwise would't be recognized for what they are. Ever since I started collecting back in the late 50s I tended to enjoy some of nearly all kinds of music and the less well know usually the more I enjoyed them. While admittedly many people in that period were filling shopping carts with what are now rare jazz records and country I concentrated on things like I put up still. Now and then someone will comment on how happy they are to hear something that usually isn't available. The most fun is when you get a note from a relative of an artist. I had one record which was a vocal, not generally played any more, but the people were so happy to find a recording of their relative. It makes my day when that happens. And as you probably realize by now I am a stickler for attempting to create a setting that represents how the music would have been heard in the home rather than a camera moving about the machine and owner plus using my diaphragm that personally I think provides the closest thing to the original sound. When I am gone they will play on which is somewhat satisfying in it self. One other reason is that someday I may not have the luxury of having machines in my life and now I can enjoy them on line as well.

Larry

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marcapra
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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by marcapra »

Larry, You started collecting old records in the late 50s? Wow, I started buying records in about 1961-1962 when I was in 6th grade, and my first records were 45s of Mashed Potatoes by Dee Dee Sharp and Twist and Shout by the Isley Brothers. I started collecting old 78s and DD's in the early 2000's, so you have about a 45 year head start on me! Did you start collecting DD's in the late 50s and how old were you then? Marc.

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by larryh »

In the late 50s I was 17 so now I am 76. Time flies but the urge to hear a record you haven't heard before is still as alive as ever. If I had all the money I spent on records I got rid of I could be living a lush retirement. Not quite so however. I actually heard my very first Victor in kindergarten when I was about 5 years old, I can still hear the "Under the Double Eagle March and Glow Worm" that they had. My grandmother had her fathers Aeolian which had ended up in her basement and we always played that till a neighbor boy broke the spring in the late 40's. I still have "A Sweet Bunch Of Daisies" from that machine as well. From then on I was hooked.

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by marcapra »

Larry, Do you remember when you got your first Edison DD phonograph and when you started collecting those "thick" records? Marc.

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by larryh »

Marc, I do. It turned out I met phonograph collector and his family when I was in high school. The father used so be a salesman who traveled much of southern Illinois. He would also go to ritzy auction houses in St. Louis. Seemed like nearly every week he came home with a rare horn machine, which in those days were not yet being sought out. His son is still one of the major collectors and for many years was a regular at Union. I think now he is not too well and didn't go this year. So one day his dad told me an antique shop in St. Louis had a Edison William and Mary Console in the window an it was 12.00. Now that to me at the time sounded like a lot of money. It also came with some electrical records but at the time I didn't know it. Over a few years he traded me some fancy Edison uprights of period models, one the Louis X V, another the Sheraton Inlaid upright, and a Sonora American Walnut, "Grand" I think they called it, the largest upright which ever name it had.

That was around the 1961 era. Even at that age I had a sneaky feeling that most records played on various kinds of machines was not what they sounded like new. Around the same time the same fellow found 1,200 new Edison disc in a closed store, I think kept in the basement for many years. I traded him for something he wanted as well. But those were mostly all noisy surfaces. As I played various records on those existing Edison phonographs I was always disturbed that they almost always would distort on sections of the music and I wanted perfection. Something that was mostly unreachable for me then. I even sent the reproducer to Leonard Ferguson who's name was actually given me when I wrote to RCA in Camden about where I might get it repaired. However when it returned it was far worse then it left. Not having any success with perfecting the sound (which I knew wasn't the true sound I was hearing), I simply ended up getting rid of them. I would guess the most I sold any of those art cases for was around 40.00, which in a day when you could buy a machine at a sale for a dollar or less seemed like some money. Don't I wish I had kept them now! It wasn't until I retired in 2002 and had been living out here in the country for some time that I bought a very nice London Model at an auction along with three boxes of records. Again I tried to purchase a new diaphragm and have the reproducer serviced but the out come was far less than happy. That is how my search for decent sound began taking some years before the True Tone Diaphragm was to my ears pretty much perfected.

Before the Edisons I had already found a number of uprights like a Chaney, several nice Victors and a Columbia none of which I still own. Now my collection contains a Chippendale Upright, Brunswick large Upright, A Sheraton 150 Edison, The Console William and Mary which is like the original one I owed way back, but not the same one. There was also a Desk Model Columbia in that mix I just recalled. Plus my great grandfathers Victor 1 From 1904. But neither of them did I keep. I also have the Columbia 800 and three Portables in various states of repair.

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Re: Why the huge difference in static from the start to end?

Post by marcapra »

That's quite a story! You should write an article for the APS newsletter of your collecting history, which I find fascinating. So you have had really two different lives as a phonograph collector, the early years and the 21st century, with the two lives separated by decades of no active phonograph interest. I can understand that back in the 60s, there would be no one who knew how to correctly rebuild an Edison reproducer. I'll bet that losing that Edison Louis XV must hurt now! That's my dream machine! I also own a Brunswick 800, a William and Mary console, an Italian Umbrian console, a Beethoven and Schubert, Edison A and B-150, and two Amberola 1A's. Table models: B-60, B-80, Opera, Edison P-1, Edison Home long case, Edison Gem. In 1961, I was begging my dad for a Schwinn Continental 10 speed bicycle! Marc.

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