CarlosV wrote:
If you include Continental Europe in the Old World, laminated records were produced in France from the 30s to the 50s, in different labels, like Gramophone, Pathé, Columbia etc, which (I think) all had the same ownership. Pressing quality was very good, about as good as the Australian HMVs. I have never seen laminated German records, although their pressing standard was very high almost from the start of their Hanover production throughout the 20s and 30s.
On the original subject, I have a number of old US black-and-silver label Columbias, and all have high surface noise and the quality of recording is lower than the Victors of the period. As Oliver mentions, in the 20s the scene changed with Columbia producing the best quality records that benefited from the lamination technique. But I also have some pre-laminated US Columbia (flag labels) that sound very good with quiet surfaces.
Clean early-electric Flag Label Columbias (and there aren't many of them!) are a delight! With the studio presence of the Western Electric engineers piloting the earlier electrical sessions (so I've read) and a clean surface, no recordings sound as immediate(to me, anyway) dating to before the pre-1932 Victor "hifi" records.
Somewhat more related to the original question, I've noticed that a number of my one-sided Standard and Harmony records (Columbia matrices, of course) sound rather rough and have a grainy look to them. This could of course be accounted for by the previous explanation regarding the heavy sound-boxes, storage through the years, etc, but were at least some of the odd-size spindle-hole records devoted to second-class Columbia products? I have no idea how record production and distribution back then worked, but what I'm trying to say is: were some of the records with more "rough" surfaces given over to Standard, Harmony, etc? I can't believe that I've found all of the grainy-surface records from that period by bad luck, and Uniteds, which date a bit later, are more smooth as to the surface and better with the sound quality. As to my double-sided Standards and Harmony's there are more on-par with Columbia Double Disc records, but definitely the matrices from 1904-07 "ain't all that great" compared to those on the Columbia label that I have from that same time-frame.