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Stereophile: 78rpms are better

Robin L said:
I used to collect 78s, worked for a short time at Ray Avery's Rare Records in Glendale, California. We had a floor stack of Caruso 78s, single-sided, $10 a pop. Also, genuinely rare LPs and 78s upstairs, a few cylinders and cylinder playing machines downstairs. I mostly procured Be-Bop 78s, having an infatuation with the music of Charlie Parker at the time. Most 78s sounded similar to the LP transcriptions though there were exceptions. But the general drift of Herb Reichert's notes is true. I got these 78s in the LP era. The transfers of 78s to LPs involves the step of the "needledrop" to tape, then mastering the record. These are two additional steps in the process, both potentially audible. On the other hand, the 78 is a "direct to disc" recording. The folks who came up with Sheffield Labs direct to disc LPs caught the idea when hearing Arthur Schnabel 78s on really good equipment.

The one 78 I owned that exceeded any transfer I've heard (so far) is "Manteca", Dizzy Gillespie and his Orchestra. It's from 1947, so it was recorded direct to disc. This transfer seems to clamp down the dynamics and obscure the treble:


I've got a lot of transfers to CD of 78s, some are good. I think in a lot of cases the loss of transparency for some 78 transfers has to do with having an analog tape step in the process. But I have a lot of digital transfers of 78s that sound good, if not quite as direct as the sound of unprocessed 78s. I'm grateful that Warner Classics came up with a Busch Quartet box with up-to date (2015) transfer work, I'm grateful for my JSP box of Louis Armstrong Hot 5s & 7s.
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I have a 78 of Manteca 1948 His Master's Voice – B.9680. Originally bought by my late father, I assume around that time.

I've ripped it to digital , sorted the EQ and cleaned off the noise and clicks with Vinyl Studio. I'm amazed at the energy of the performance and love the idea of my dad buying at as a teenager.
 
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Purité Audio said:
Very brittle though, Herb would have to be careful.
Keith
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Had a copy of "This is Always", Charlie Parker Quartet, Earl Coleman vocals, Dial records. Handed it—just handed it over, nothing violent or sudden—to an acquaintance, it split in two. Had a copy of "Now's the Time", Charlie Parker's Reboppers, Savoy, that cost real money. Its damage looked like someone took a bite out of it. Should have turned it into a clock.
 
As for good ol' R. Crumb: The Mac C8 mono preamp does indeed have a very nice, and very flexible phono preamp section.
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McIntosh C8 Audio Compensator

www.mcintoshlabs.com www.mcintoshlabs.com
They're still fairly common, and fairly sought after, at least here in New England.

The Radio Craftsmen C-500 is a redoubtable power amplifier. I do not have one (much less two), but I do know a number of folks who do - and I harbor a certain amount of envy. ;)

I won't besmirch the JBL C40, but they're a little too bright and harsh for my taste. I'm still an Altec fanboi at heart. :)
 
Robin L said:
Had a copy of "This is Always", Charlie Parker Quartet, Earl Coleman vocals, Dial records. Handed it—just handed it over, nothing violent or sudden—to an acquaintance, it split in two. Had a copy of "Now's the Time", Charlie Parker's Reboppers, Savoy, that cost real money. Its damage looked like someone took a bite out of it. Should have turned it into a clock.
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Well, that's the thing about vinyl, isn't it? As I have recently shown in another thread, a vinyl LP... can be turned into a serving bowl. :cool:
In this case it's far more useful now than it was in its initial incarnation -- as a Wham! record. :eek:

DSCN5509.jpg
 
mhardy6647 said:
Oh and the three coolest things about shellac.
1) it's phenomenally brittle
2) it's exuded by a beetle.
3) it's soluble in alcohol.
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Which reminds me—whatever you do, don't clean your 78s with Windex. I learned that the hard way*.

*Shellac is soluble in alkaline solutions of ammonia, sodium borate, sodium carbonate, and sodium hydroxide, and also in various organic solvents. When dissolved in alcohol (typically denatured ethanol) for application, shellac yields a coating of good durability and hardness. (Wiki) Old formula Windex has both isopropyl alcohol and ammonia.
 
The New York Times also did a story about the Hot Club [gift link]:

www.nytimes.com

A Sacred Space Where 90-Year-Old Jazz Records Reign

At the Hot Club of New York, patrons revisit the music’s past by spinning shellac 78 RPM discs of recordings made in the 1910s to ’50s.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Going all well akshually and harumphing about the relative sound quality of 78s totally misses the coolness of the place from my perspective. Some of the greatest music ever recorded is on 78s and communing with that sound and history in a dedicated boite is extremely groovy!
 
Let's see what a 113 (yes, a-hundred-and-thirteen) years old gear does:

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- A ton of silver, fulfills strict audiophile standards, check.


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Variable speed control and auto stop, check.



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Fully analog volume control, check.


Plus, 100% efficiency, 0.0W standby


At the end of the day, would anyone with the right mind stick to the "sound" at the face of this miracle of a performance?


 
mhardy6647 said:
on standards...

View attachment 509485
source: https://xkcd.com/927/
Some things never change. ;)
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I used to work with a gentleman named Roy Green whose day job took him into the ISO realm. We used to joke that the great thing about standards is that there are so many of them.

This cartoon reminded me of him - he was a fine trumpet player too. I haven't seen him in years, but I believe he is the leader of the Potluck Dixieland Jazz Band, performing in southwestern Ontario, Canada.

@mhardy6647 - thanks for the smile and the memory!
 
HalSF said:
The New York Times also did a story about the Hot Club [gift link]:

www.nytimes.com

A Sacred Space Where 90-Year-Old Jazz Records Reign

At the Hot Club of New York, patrons revisit the music’s past by spinning shellac 78 RPM discs of recordings made in the 1910s to ’50s.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com

Going all well akshually and harumphing about the relative sound quality of 78s totally misses the coolness of the place from my perspective. Some of the greatest music ever recorded is on 78s and communing with that sound and history in a dedicated boite is extremely groovy!
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And I think it also begs the question of what "high fidelity" really means. In terms of background noise, speed stability and bandwidth, 78s are, by and large, not "high fidelity". But in terms of dynamics and presence these 78s are "high fidelity" in a way that most recordings are not.
 
tmtomh said:
Yes of course, all things being equal, a faster rotational speed allows for higher fidelity in an analogue disc format. But of course as we all know and many folks have already pointed out, all things are most certainly not equal.
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Yes, the source certainly matters most. I no longer spin vinyl, but people do praise 45rpm versions over 33-1/3, so 78 praise generally makes sense. It would be interesting to do a double-blind testing on all three rpm versions of the same source. I’m curious how that would go. I know blind evaluation of different digital file bit rate and kHz gets murky pretty quickly.
 
It sounds like time for a release of Kind of Blue on five 12" 78s.
 
Imakeller said:
Yes, the source certainly matters most. I no longer spin vinyl, but people do praise 45rpm versions over 33-1/3, so 78 praise generally makes sense. It would be interesting to do a double-blind testing on all three rpm versions of the same source. I’m curious how that would go. I know blind evaluation of different digital file bit rate and kHz gets murky pretty quickly.
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Yes, and of course the other major issue is that Reichert is talking about recordings pressed on shellac, whose properties make for noise and fidelity issues that far outweigh its theoretical speed advantage - which Reichert full well knows and simply doesn't care about because he wants to indiscriminately mix together the emotional experience he had "[sitting] on a bright yellow velveteen sofa eating red beans and rice while listening for three hours to blues and jazz from rare 78rpm records" with ridiculous claims about those shellac 78s being more "transparent" and providing "vocal immediacy today's audiophiles can't imagine."

I should also note that I say this as someone who has read articles and books about 78 collector culture and finds it fascinating.
 
I have no doubt that attending an evening at the Hot Club is a great experience. The surroundings and company one listens in can play a large role for enjoyment. It's the claims about sound quality that ire me.
 
tmtomh said:
Yes, as soon as I read the OP, and before I clicked the link, my first thought was, "It's gotta be Herb Reichert."

Seems like a perfectly fine guy and I appreciate his enthusiasm, but he often does this kind of poetic waxing about how stuff makes him feel, and quickly ends up with these silly assertions.

Yes of course, all things being equal, a faster rotational speed allows for higher fidelity in an analogue disc format. But of course as we all know and many folks have already pointed out, all things are most certainly not equal.

Best to ignore Reichert IMHO, unless you enjoy his writings for entertainment value.
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Don't find his writing all that entertaining, more just sad.
 
tmtomh said:
Yes, as soon as I read the OP, and before I clicked the link, my first thought was, "It's gotta be Herb Reichert."

Seems like a perfectly fine guy and I appreciate his enthusiasm, but he often does this kind of poetic waxing about how stuff makes him feel, and quickly ends up with these silly assertions.

Yes of course, all things being equal, a faster rotational speed allows for higher fidelity in an analogue disc format. But of course as we all know and many folks have already pointed out, all things are most certainly not equal.

Best to ignore Reichert IMHO, unless you enjoy his writings for entertainment value.
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Can't think of anyone better to ignore in audio than Herb Reichert myself.
 
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