Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

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Phototone
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Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Phototone »

Many years ago I was having a conversation on the telephone with a person at Diamond Cut productions, a company that makes computer software for cleaning up old recordings, as well as releasing several CD's of Edison recordings.

The person I was talking to was very stubborn and firm in his statement that the Edison Needle Cut 78 rpm recordings had a better and wider frequency response in their recording than the Edison Diamond Disc electric recordings.

I don't have many Edison Needle Cut discs, but I have plenty of electrically recorded Diamond Disc recordings. I think the Diamond Disc recordings are superior in almost all cases. The Diamond Cut CD's were made from Needle Cut masters according to the person I talked to.

Opinions, comments, welcome.

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Wolfe
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Wolfe »

Interesting question.

I've never been able to compare the same selection on a Needle Cut and electrical DD. That's the only way to get a valid response. Playback gear may introduce some variables as well, especially your choice of stylus, even if you're using the same cartridge model for both.

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WDC
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by WDC »

From my few needle types I have come to the conclusion, that their quality wasn't fully consistent as one would think. Many are really nice but not all have the same high frequency range. I did also compare a few and in many cases, the diamond discs don't have the full response as their needle type counterparts. However, this is paid at the price of higher surface noise of the needle types, which can easily eat up those details.

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Wolfe
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Wolfe »

I think you'd want your Needle Cut records to be at or near NOS / mint quality, too. That 'crumbly' material that they were pressed on might have had the high end stripped away pretty quickly by an old heavy tracking player. The DD's would be more robust, obviously.

gregbogantz
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by gregbogantz »

This is a bit of an apples vs. oranges discussion, mostly because the same titles aren't available on the two formats for comparison. If one could obtain similar musical content in terms of bass and treble instruments, you could do a peak spectrum analysis to determine whether there were measurable differences in the records. But my limited experience indicates that the electrical DDs are capable of pretty wide-band performance. I was shocked when I played a very late electrical DD on a modern hifi system and heard pipe organ bass extending down to around 30Hz. So the DD electrical mastering equipment was capable of fairly wide-band frequency response. The biggest problem with the Edison needle cuts is the absolutely crap shellac compound that they used to press them. I have several nearly new needle cuts and they all exhibit a similar very high surface noise. Victor's compound of the day was vastly better. The DDs are also fairly noisy, mostly because the modulation amplitude is quite low compared to needle cuts. So, on balance, I would say there isn't very much difference in audio quality between the electric DDs and the needle cuts.
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Wolfe
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Wolfe »

gregbogantz wrote:This is a bit of an apples vs. oranges discussion, mostly because the same titles aren't available on the two formats for comparison.
I had thought they were some cutting DD and Needle Cut masters simultaneously. Maybe I'm wrong about that.

Absent that, musical content, microphone placement, recording levels, etc. could introduce so many variables as to make a definitive analysis pretty tricky otherwise. I could see how the vertical cut DD's could at least allow for more bass response, at their best.

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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by transformingArt »

This is a very interesting thread, and I can't help myself to tell about my experience about it.

Some time ago, I had a chance to compare 2 Edison versions of Giovanni Martinelli's rendition of Celeste Aida. One was super-rare Electric Edison Diamond Disc version on #82351, and the other was Edison Needle Cut record version on #47003. After few repeated playings (played on a modern equipment with proper stylus for each) - I tend to agree that Edison Needle cut records are sonically superior to their Diamond Disc counterparts, albeit very slightly.

To my ears, There were not so much differences on general tone or clarity of sound, but Edison Needle Cut version gave some more, natural responses on both higher and low frequencies. Edison Diamond Disc version sounded somewhat muffled at the high frequencies; it was very noticeable especially at the trumpet fanfare at the beginning of aria. Needle cut version sounded very natural, while Diamond disc version sounded hollow and distant. The voice was captured much more prominently on Needle cut version, whereas on the Diamond Disc version, the voice sounded little bit stressed and too much "boomy". Not to mention, there were considerable amount of rumble and other sonic distortions on Diamond Disc version, while the Needle cut counterpart were largely free of these sort of faults.

Of course, the Edison Needle cuts are still not that terribly good compared to the contemporary Orthophonic or Viva-Tonal recordings. I'll simply stuck to my Victors and Columbias rather than Edisons.

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Wolfe
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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Wolfe »

How many Needle Cut titles were even issued anyway? A few hundred or so?

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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by Phototone »

Wolfe wrote:How many Needle Cut titles were even issued anyway? A few hundred or so?
Yes, but the conversation with Diamond Cut productions I had, was in reference to all the masters, not just the issued discs.

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Re: Diamond Disc vs Edison Needle Cut sound quality controversy

Post by 52089 »

Wolfe wrote:
gregbogantz wrote:This is a bit of an apples vs. oranges discussion, mostly because the same titles aren't available on the two formats for comparison.
I had thought they were some cutting DD and Needle Cut masters simultaneously. Maybe I'm wrong about that.
Quoting "Collector's Guide to Edison Records" (Copeland and Sherman, p. 29):
"Beginning with matrix #19025 (Feb. 2, 1929) ... the speed of the Diamond Discs was decreased slightly to 78.8 RPM. This allowed the new needle cut lateral discs to be recorded at the same time on another lathe by splitting the electrical signal"

So at least theoretically, they were cut simultaneously. What I don't undersand is, when you're cutting on 2 different lathes, why would you have to adjust the speed of the Diamond Disc lathe as a result?

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