The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Drh ! The difference between information and knowledge, random data and deduced wisdom, hearsay and authenticity define the difference between internet clicks and credible professional literature.

OrthoFan wrote: Tue Mar 28, 2023 10:54 pm I found a few inexpensive copies:

https://m.alibris.com/The-Fabulous-Phon ... k/34587866

https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/isbn/0020326807/

Hth
OrthoFan

Thanks OrthoFan ! Luckily I found a good deal in recent past and bought the book. Thanks for sharing.
Sheraz

Sherazhyder wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:28 pm Drh ! The difference between information and knowledge, random data and deduced wisdom, hearsay and authenticity define the difference between internet clicks and credible professional literature.

I like the way you think! Wish more people agreed on this sort of thing--Being able to cite a source with authority to back it up is real research right there.

VanEpsFan1914 wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:40 pm
I like the way you think! Wish more people agreed on this sort of thing--Being able to cite a source with authority to back it up is real research right there.

Thanks for appreciation and acknowledgement.
Best regards
Sheraz

Sherazhyder wrote: Wed Mar 29, 2023 1:28 pm Drh ! The difference between information and knowledge, random data and deduced wisdom, hearsay and authenticity define the difference between internet clicks and credible professional literature.

Let's not make more of The Fabulous Phonograph than it deserves. It's attractively written and informative as far as it goes, but it isn't a scholarly study; it's a popular history of the phonograph written by a magazine journalist and dates in parts as far back as 1954 and no later than 1977. It was never comprehensive, and a lot of information has come to light since then. If you're looking for a more "scholarly" book contemporary with the Gelatt volume, you want From Tinfoil to Stereo by Read and Welch--not the recent reprint, which I understand more or less gutted the book, but an older, complete edition. It's dry reading but far more detailed. Once again, though, it's old; my copy, a softback that is falling apart from having been read so much back when it was close to the only game in town, is a second edition printing from 1976; the original goes back to 1959. Neither, of course, will give you any of the research and scholarship that have come in a half century since, each has its own filters about what is and is not worth including (I think neither so much as mentions the EMG gramophones), and each has its own distinct point of view to the disadvantage of acoustic era Columbia. Much of that more recent information has come to light and been made available because members of the phonograph/record collecting community, scholars and enthusiasts alike, have done their own research and shared it through the Internet, which also gives us terrific resources like DAHR and the Kelly HMV database. Nor are the two books free of bloopers; for instance, Read and Welch somehow manage to label a photo of a Victrola IV as "the first Victor machine featuring an enclosed horn." So don't say, "Oh, pooh, pooh, if it isn't in a book, it's not authoritative." The Internet is certainly a two-edged sword, and as always one must exercise discretion in accepting what it offers, but it has opened up a wealth of knowledge about phonographs and records, and I for one would not willingly go back to the days when those two books were essentially all we had.

drh wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:44 am If you're looking for a more "scholarly" book contemporary with the Gelatt volume, you want From Tinfoil to Stereo by Read and Welch--not the recent reprint, which I understand more or less gutted the book, but an older, complete edition. It's dry reading but far more detailed. Once again, though, it's old; my copy, a softback that is falling apart from having been read so much back when it was close to the only game in town, is a second edition printing from 1976; the original goes back to 1959.

The one to avoid is the 1994-ish retread by Walter Welch, which might better have been titled "From Tinfoil to Western Electric", as from what I remember at the time, it basically ended itself with the demise of acoustic recording. (Oliver Read, by contrast, authored numerous books in the 1950s and perhaps later, focusing not just on electrical disc recording but also tape.) The original was indeed published in 1959, with a second expanded edition adding newer technologies (such as videodiscs) in 1976.

The 1994 printing effectively keeps Tinfoil in copyright until well after we've crumbled to dust; I don't know what the current status is of The Fabulous Phonograph (which itself also went through two editions, the second I believe also from the 1970s but don't quote me), but both it and the preferred versions of FTTS have been out of print for decades.

I could not agree more.
Cheers

I just recently came across a 1970s copy of From Tinfoil to Stereo and I was shocked at the inaccuracies. I would not recommend it, unless the later editions correct the vast number of assumptions, mistakes, incorrect labeling of photos, etc.

Jwb88 wrote: Thu Mar 30, 2023 10:35 pm I just recently came across a 1970s copy of From Tinfoil to Stereo and I was shocked at the inaccuracies. I would not recommend it, unless the later editions correct the vast number of assumptions, mistakes, incorrect labeling of photos, etc.

There's only one later edition, and it corrects nothing. In fact, it may be worse. I'm possibly prejudiced, but my feeling is that much of the book's inaccuracies and slant toward acoustic recording/reproduction and vertical modulation comes from Walter Welch. Oliver Read fully embraced electric everything, including magnetic tape, and was a prolific writer on then-modern recording and reproduction methods and equipment. (Welch did the 1994 edition, Read having passed away, and that one very pointedly ends with the introduction of electrical recording.)

I like the 1970s FTFTS, but a lot of that is from nostalgia; I was a preadolescent in the 1970s when I discovered antique phonos and 78s, and both Tinfoil and The Fabulous Phonograph seemed like godsends. In some ways, they used the best research available at the time - which is no small feat considering how much archival material had been discarded or destroyed from the early and even middle days of the industry by then. There is better material available now, some of it only discovered within the past 15-20 years, and by modern standards both books fall short. But in their day, they were quite a springboard.

Despite the occurrence of errors, one may not like to out rightly dismiss the FTFTS as a motley collection of unauthentic information. The book was a pioneering attempt to document about a century of achievements in the area of audio recording and playing technology. Undoubtedly it gathered huge amount of data, fort which it remains the only source. Certainly, this book paved way for more authentic, concise and well written histories.