BA5056 Red Hot Henry Brown - Georgia Melodians

[Phototone]

This selection would have been dubbed from a diamond disc, right? Sure sounds good.

[OrthoSean]

Yup, it's a dub. I was just speaking with another collector a few nights ago about dubbed BAs, some of them can be incredibly good and some (most?) are pretty lousy, which is terribly unfortunate!

Sean

[Valecnik]

Yup, it's a dub. I was just speaking with another collector a few nights ago about dubbed BAs, some of them can be incredibly good and some (most?) are pretty lousy, which is terribly unfortunate!

Sean

Surely more than half of the dubs don't sound great. You don't notice it so much on the later Amberolas in my opinion. Maybe the smallish horns mask it a bit.

I often wonder though how one would have felt, shelling out $200 for an Amberola I in 1910, 11, 12, knocked off your feet by the fidelity of the direct recorded 4 minute wax and then the Blue Amberol, only to notice the deterioration in quality starting in 1915...

[OrthoSean]

Yup, it's a dub. I was just speaking with another collector a few nights ago about dubbed BAs, some of them can be incredibly good and some (most?) are pretty lousy, which is terribly unfortunate!

Sean

Surely more than half of the dubs don't sound great. You don't notice it so much on the later Amberolas in my opinion. Maybe the smallish horns mask it a bit.

I often wonder though how one would have felt, shelling out $200 for an Amberola I in 1910, 11, 12, knocked off your feet by the fidelity of the direct recorded 4 minute wax and then the Blue Amberol, only to notice the deterioration in quality starting in 1915...

Right, that's why I said (most?) are pretty lousy

Every now and then though, you'll get a nice dance band BA that you have to listen hard to notice that it's a dub. Last night I played a dubbed BA by Benoist (piano) and it was absolutely HORRIBLE. A shame, too, since it's a great piece!

Sean

[Valecnik]

Yup, it's a dub. I was just speaking with another collector a few nights ago about dubbed BAs, some of them can be incredibly good and some (most?) are pretty lousy, which is terribly unfortunate!

Sean

Surely more than half of the dubs don't sound great. You don't notice it so much on the later Amberolas in my opinion. Maybe the smallish horns mask it a bit.

I often wonder though how one would have felt, shelling out $200 for an Amberola I in 1910, 11, 12, knocked off your feet by the fidelity of the direct recorded 4 minute wax and then the Blue Amberol, only to notice the deterioration in quality starting in 1915...

Right, that's why I said (most?) are pretty lousy


Every now and then though, you'll get a nice dance band BA that you have to listen hard to notice that it's a dub. Last night I played a dubbed BA by Benoist (piano) and it was absolutely HORRIBLE. A shame, too, since it's a great piece!

Sean

And to complicate things further, some of the 1918-1919 dubs sound much better than almost all copies of the DD they were dub be from! And then, you've got those weird situations like the Raderman BA, "Blues My Naughty Sweety" which was dubbed to cylinder but never released on DD, so no direct recording available at all!

[OrthoSean]

the Raderman BA, "Blues My Naughty Sweety" which was dubbed to cylinder but never released on DD, so no direct recording available at all!

Ah, yes, those. In the process of moving and sorting boxes of BAs from that auction over the summer, I noticed this one in the box I was looking through last night. Haven't played that one yet! I've been looking things up in the cylinder discography as I play them to see if they were ever out on DD or not. Odd stuff, but fascinating to me.

Sean

[Valecnik]

the Raderman BA, "Blues My Naughty Sweety" which was dubbed to cylinder but never released on DD, so no direct recording available at all!

Ah, yes, those. In the process of moving and sorting boxes of BAs from that auction over the summer, I noticed this one in the box I was looking through last night. Haven't played that one yet! I've been looking things up in the cylinder discography as I play them to see if they were ever out on DD or not. Odd stuff, but fascinating to me.

Sean

It's not bad. Probably the wildest version I've heard is the Ted Lewis on Columbia but the Edison one is not bad. Let me see what I can find...

[dd2u]

I often wonder though how one would have felt, shelling out $200 for an Amberola I in 1910, 11, 12, knocked off your feet by the fidelity of the direct recorded 4 minute wax and then the Blue Amberol, only to notice the deterioration in quality starting in 1915...

I think their reaction is recorded in some of the trade magazines and society reports from the time. I do not recall where I read it but there is a report from the UK gramophone phonograph scene from the acoustic era bemoaning the fact that the best recordings they have available are early Blue Amerbols and that nothing currently in production (cylinder or disc) can compare. I think they kept moaning about "Damberols" until electrical recording came along and changed everything. I do not recall a mention of diamond discs in this report.

There is a very brief mention of "Damberols" at the bottom right of this page:
http://www.exacteditions.com/read/gramo ... 33601/14/3

Further talk on another forum can be found here:
http://edisonphonos.proboards.com/index ... age=1#9058