The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Do you buy both Edison Diamond Discs and Blue Amberols containing the same titles?

I personally have a couple that are on both formats, but trying to avoid doing it. I stick mostly to Diamond Discs, but try to get songs that were not released on disc on the Blue Amberols, and reproduction records which are hard to find on the 4 minute format.

If I have a dubbed BA of an interesting title, and I find a good copy of the DD - especially if it's a late transfer or a paper label - I'm likely to buy it for the better sound.

As for the 1916 -19 period, sometimes the dubbed versions can be more tolerable to listen to than the originals…

As an example of the first category: among my first batch of DDs was a copy of 'Music Box Rag', which was horribly split. As it is a good tune, when I found the BA in an auction list, I snapped it up. If I can find a really good original disc, I'll get that:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYj2m45Bp5U[/youtube]

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:As for the 1916 -19 period, sometimes the dubbed versions can be more tolerable to listen to than the originals…

Very true. I'll occasionally look for both formats if I particularly like a tune. Dubbing quality varied widely, from abysmal to hardly detectable (almost as good as the direct recording, with very little "rumble" when the dub cuts in). Here's one example of a particularly bad dub:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDZnd5DQ334[/youtube]