Date:         Fri, 5 Jan 2007 21:37:42 -0500
Reply-To:     Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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Sender:       Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List
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From:         Tom Fine <[log in to unmask]>
Subject:      Re: Libraries disposing of records
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Hi Steven:

Actually, what's happened historically has been that when a better sound medium comes along, the 
older musical styles get redone or revived in the new medium, to a certain extent. Louis Armstrong 
and Duke Ellington -- acoustic 78's, electric 78's, mono LP, stereo LP and the master tapes from the 
LPs reissued on CD with no LP limitations on fidelity. Armstrong and Ellington recorded their 
essential repertoire several times over, each in a higher fidelity medium. So what about Bix (used 
as an example because he died long before better fidelity came along)? Therein is your argument. But 
Bix has been preserved and in fact enhanced in later reissues as technology got better. And when 
someone today goes and buys a Bix CD, unless he has the worst listening system around, he's 
guaranteed a better listening experience that getting that flawed-from-the-factory scratchy and 
noisy shellac, putting it on his acoustic Victrola and hearing a tiny piece of the audible spectrum 
blasting out of his horn. But maybe the awful sound out of the tinny horn is part of the 
"experience"?  BTW, I'm using jazz examples just because that's what I know. I could cite Muddy 
Waters (Lomax field recordings, same material recorded later in mono hifi and then later again in 
stereo) or a bunch of Classical conductors and orchestras who were active in the 78 era and then had 
a Golden Age of Recording starting with the transition to LP and then getting all the way up into 
the 70's in some cases, all the way to digital for a few. Point is, again, that commercially viable 
stuff gets preserved, rehashed, redone and then reissued and enhanced. If there's a buck to be made, 
it gets done.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven C. Barr(x)" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 8:20 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Libraries disposing of records


> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
>> At the risk of offending some on list, I have to offer a reality check, in
> line with Bob's posting.
>> Guys, 78's are a real FRINGE/NICHE. Anything with any remote chance of "mass
> market" is out on CD or
>> iTunes. Most people -- myself included -- just don't like bad quality sound.
> Yes, there are some 78
>> reissues where they went back to metal parts and used tasteful, effective and
> sound-improving
>> digital restoration, and it's great that modern life offers that wonderful
> music in a
>> better-than-original mass-market format. But those shellac disks, they're just
> a novelty nowadays,
>> in most but not all cases. Now, that said, of course I'll grab a pile from the
> curbside if the music
>> is anything I'm remotely interested in because I like to play the Victrola for
> my nieces and nephews
>> to show them "ye olde sound equipment". But I limit my 78 "collection" to one
> milk crate and I'd
>> heave it first if I got in a space crunch. Edison cylinders -- I'm really glad
> UCSB has that archive
>> online but I can't see how anyone would listen to that stuff for enjoyment. It
> sounds worse than a
>> phone call over the Internet from Europe! But, back to my main point, if
> there's a profitable market
>> for something, it finds its value and there apparently is no market for most
> 78's.
>>
> Probably true...and certainly defensible as a personal opinion...BUT...
>
> The comment, distilled to its actual inherent statement, becomes:
>
> "Each improvement in sound (or, in theory, ANY form if) recording
> automatically makes all previous recordings made with older forms
> of technology no longer worth preserving or even accessing!"
>
> Aside from the one essential question of "Is any standard-variety
> digital recording by definition superior to every analog recording"...?!
> The point is that as each form of (sound) recording appeared, a
> certain number of recordings were made that could not, under any
> circumstances not involving time travel, ever again have been made.
>
> Since the art of "improving" (in the sense of trying to recreate
> what one assumes the original sounded like) is, so far, still in
> a highly theoretical position...this suggests that our listener
> can never satisfactorily access these historic recordings, and
> is thus limited to recordings of the last two decades or so.
>
> In my own case, I'm willing to tolerate the surface noise and
> reduced fidelity inherent in shellac "78's"...even acoustic ones...
> in return for hearing the recorded music of that era...!
>
> Steven C. Barr
>