Victor Scroll 24000 series

[Victrolaman]

Hi,
I have been in the process of putting my huge record collection in order, not a easy task if any of you have done this with yours. One question i always wondered is why alot of fellow collectors say the 24000 series of the Victor Orthophonic scrolls are hard to find and sought after. I have had a few fellow collector friends of mine say they were knows for the quality sound they had.
Any one have any thoughts on this?
I have about 35 in my collection or more, at least so far from putting them in order.
Any thoughts from you felow collectors or knowledge would be great thanks

[Viva-Tonal]

The scarcity of these is because they all were released in the depth of the Depression. (The titles on 24000 were recorded in April 1932; those on 25000 in March 1935. There are also titles which are reissues of earlier recordings--24893 ['South' b/w 'She's no trouble' by Bennie Moten's orchestra] being a well-known example as it's a reissue of V-38021 recorded in September 1928. 24893 was in print well into the 1940s if not into the early 1950s even though most copies have 'South' as a dubbing instead of a master pressing.)

The sound quality part actually begins in 1931 somewhere in the 22600 or 22700 range, whenever Victor gradually began using newly-developed recording equipment from RCA (such as their ribbon microphones) instead of the Western Electric equipment that had been the standard since they adopted electric recording early in 1925. (Part of the savings included not having to pay Western Electric approximately one penny per copy sold of each record made with the RCA technology, as their patent license agreements with WE dictated they must.) Recordings made with RCA equipment have the diamond VE symbol instead of the earlier oval VE symbol of the WE recordings.

The notable thing is, many of these early RCA recordings had a relatively unrestricted dynamic range and a wider frequency response which more closely represented the true frequency response of the new microphones (at least 30 to 15000 Hz) and cutting heads which could cleanly cut up to 10000 Hz and beyond. You could be forgiven for guessing some of them were recorded in 1952 or 1953 instead of 20 years earlier.

Where it later went wrong (as we now see it) was the 'suits' demanded records that played louder and lasted longer....those authentic dynamics resulted in records that didn't 'seem' that loud much of the time but had certain passages that seemed to violently self-destruct after relatively few plays with the heavy low-compliance reproducers of the day. In short, those records were literally too good for the average record players of eight decades ago. Hence, filters, compressors and limiters were developed and implemented into the recording chains as corporate policy which shaved off peaks in music and cut off everything above approximately 7500 to 8500 Hz beginning in approximately 1938.

[Victrolaman]

Hi,
Thank you im glad someone responded to my post

Very informative. I have been in the process of putting my collection of 13 years in some sort of order, its a long task but in the end it will be good. But i have quite a few of those series and i always heard about the sound quality and rarity of them.
All good information thank you for your time i apreciate it !
Have a great day

[syncopeter]

I'm compiling an article about the difference between what could actually be recorded and what the record players of the day were able to reproduce without damaging a record within one or two playbacks. This information really helps. Even in the acoustic recording period there appears to have been a gap between recording equipment and the average phonograph.

[syncopeter]

I just played some Youtube movies of Victor 24000 series records and they really stand out soundwise. No wonder they are so much sought after. Both rare, because they were made in the worst of the depression years and the first true high fidelity recordings with the new Photophone ribbon microphones, developed for the movie industry, but soon used widely by all major record companies, because they were in a completely different class than the the by then vintage Western Electric ones. Particularly RCA's PB-44 became a household name well into the 1960's and is still in use in developing countries today.
Look at any movie of the 1930s with a band playing and you will see that mike. It simply was that good. Hell to set up, very sensitive to plops, so a vocalist had to stand at least a foot away, but with a totally flat characteristic from 30 to 15,000 Hz.