The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

On another subject, the electrical reproduction or acoustic play back is a long running question. I can only say what has been my experience.

I once owned for along while a Credenza. Which of course played electrical recordings. I can't even recall how I met the people but at one point someone who worked for a sort of Alternative Radio station heard it and was very impressed. He arranged for some engineers to come over and make recordings of it for play on his show.. But what happened was interesting. At first they wouldn't even consider that it was possible that the Credenza's ability to project the sound of individual instruments or singers far out over the rest of the sound was what made it so impressive. Something that only acoustic play back seemed to do well. So they began to try to record the machine.. After a bit they gave up conceding that you couldn't capture the same effects with electrical playback. I tended to call it the Flattening of the music. Instead of the great depth of sound you got a more flat picture of the record where the instruments stayed more on the same level. A bit hard to explain but I think any owner of will know what I mean. Its why the releases of old pieces often are so disappointing as they just don't have the same effects as the air moving the sound outward does in mechanical reproduction.

What you may gain in overall wider sound is lost in the excitement of the projected sounds of the mechanical machine. In fact recently I was playing some orthophonic era things on a somewhat large stereo system I have and just for the sake of comparison I had a small portable victor orthophonic machine on a bench in the same room. The acoustic machine turned out to have the most exciting sound over the large stereo speakers.

Larry

larryh wrote:I suppose I am in a minority here but for my taste and ear, having the lids up during performances adds to excessive feedback from the diaphragm which is unavoidable but accented by the lids remaining up in play.. In my many hours of testing I have gone a bit both ways in listening. Some feedback is natural and some is due to either the records or the diaphragm. Probably some of each plays in most instances. Sometimes when I stand back from a machine opening the lid seems to increase the tonal range, which might be true. On the other hand when I am standing near the machine and lower the lid while in play I am often struck by how the solid effects are enhanced by the sound coming only though the grills.

I largely agree with you on this, and in fact I own at least one Orthophonic machine that is clearly marked "Close lid while playing". It would certainly be possible to record the audio separately with the lid closed and merge it with a video taken with the lid open. However, as you and I have both noted, you can't really record the depth and acoustic power anyway. That being the case, these videos, even under the best circumstances, are only approximations of what you'd hear in the room. Since there is a relatively low limit to what can be done anyway, I generally do things in 1 or 2 takes with little editing. Better IMHO to get a decent video out there as is, than to spend 10 hours making it 5% better.

There was a famous orchestra conductor, Sergiu Celibidache, who loathed recording, because a recording could never capture the sound of a concert hall, and this was long after multi-channel recording and stereo were available. The few recordings he made tend to have the music slowed down and the pauses exaggerated, thus allowing the notes and overtones to really make more of an impact on the recording. Whether that was more successful in recording the "concert hall" sound is a matter of opinion of course.

Yes You Tube has its limitations. Though my video I made was pretty satisfactory some noises and things in the video were not happening in real time. I understand that You Tube recently bragged about cutting the video quality in order to get more things up faster and faster play back so you do have to sort of out guess the reality of what the video seems to show.. Much of the feedback though is real, but your also correct that most people have little concern about that.

Larry

Nice recording! The Operatic diamond discs can be just stunning if you get a clear sounding recording of an attractive piece. I'm a big Rappold fan. Thomas Chalmers, even less well known than Rappold is anothter one of my favorites.

Re. lid up or down, I'm a traditionalist, like Edison himself, lid up, sitting on a chair close to the machine, (but not nearly as close as he liked to be). You don't need an Edisonic or Dance reproducer either. I have both but they are almost never used.

Miss Rappold's voice is beautiful on this recording.

Agree that the sound is generally better with the lid down. I have left them up in the one or two videos I've done though, because they were aimed at the general public and more to give exposure to the machine and how it works than the record.

Clay

One of my favorite Operatic Diamond Discs. Edison seems to have called together all the heavy hitters to belt this one out including Alice Verlet, Guido Ciccolini, Arthur Middleton, Henri Scott, Merle Alcock, Enrico Baroni. The other side is of the same piece with a different group of artists.


[youtubehd]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKmK0olnEDQ[/youtubehd]

I love this side, but never understood the logic behind the coupling. A recording of the Rigoletto quartet on the flip side would have been sensible. Henri Scott made some rather dreadful Columbia recordings in the teens. Compliments the ensemble well here though.