Actually, mono 78-quality audio works fine at 128K MP3 -- that's considered a very high quality 
level for old radio, for instance. But, if I were doing the transferring, I'd do a hard low-pass at 
10K just to make sure surface noises don't cause needless digi-swishies. With most 78 playback 
systems I've heard (not pro-grade like my friend Shiffy has), I'd also do a high-pass to kill that 
rumble.

I have a lot of respect for the fact that you 78 guys can hear through the format and focus on the 
content. Same goes for Edisons. I need a higher degree of fidelity to enjoy music, which is my loss 
because certain treasures only exist in the older formats. I can tolerate later-era 78's, especially 
recent reissues where they go back to metal parts and use (finally) good digi-filtering to clean up 
background noise without taking away all the music.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "steven c" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 4:53 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Community Radio


> see end...
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]>
>> I wasn't talking about internet-only at all. I was talking about using
> modern technology to make
>> equipment investment minimal.
>>
>> Net-only is very easy, just do a podcast. But, as I've said before, beware
> of ASCAP/BMI rules. And,
>> even if you load up a podcast file of 192K MP3 (which becomes a rather
> large file when you get up to
>> 30-60 minutes), the quality is still sub-par from a good-quality FM
> broadcast (but better than
>> over-processed headache inducing garbage found on most FM frequencies in
> most places today).
>>
>> The thing that interested me about community radio is that it would be
> nice to have a real-deal
>> FM-quality signal (albeit low power with limited range) with something
> aside from what Evergreen and
>> Clearchannel decide is good content. I'd also love to open it up to some
> of the local high school
>> kids and older folks who are into music -- see if exposure to different
> tastes and styles broadens
>> everyone involved.
>>
>> But, given the PITA factor, I'll just revert back to my norm -- staying
> happy with 1000+ LPs,
>> hundreds of tapes and several thousand CD's. Music is becoming less and
> less a shared experience
>> anyway, with the iPod revolution and decline of music-based radio. Back in
> high school, many years
>> ago, I tried to gin up interest for a school radio station to go over the
> cable TV system (we
>> already had a TV studio, so it wouldn't be a big deal to piggyback onto
> that infrastructure). Could
>> not get enough commitments to make it feasible, and got outright hostility
> from the union AV and
>> library staff. Oh well. At that time, my friend, who was in a serious
> Deadhead phase, told me,
>> "dude, I feel your pain a little but I gotta tell ya -- the best radio
> station in the world is your
>> own turntable, man." Since this guy introduced me to MANY still-loved
> musicians and music genres, I
>> listened to his words even if we looked like a 60's refugee and was a bit
> bleary-eyed (he now works
>> for the UN, so go figure). He was right, of course.
>>
>> Somewhat relevant to all of this, and worth reading, is Chris Anderson's
> "The Long Tail". It started
>> with this article:
>> http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
>> and was expanded to a book:
>> http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1401302378/sr=8-1/qid=1152787909/tomslinx
>> and Anderson has a related blog:
>> http://www.thelongtail.com/
>>
>> I don't buy it all, hook line and sinker, but there are a lot of
> interesting facts and predictions.
>> Bottom line is, there might be hope for our oft lament: languishing out of
> print copyrighted
>> commercial music. Under the Long Tail theory, the Big Music
> mega-glomerates will wake up to the fact
>> that there is demand for this stuff, though small compared to their
> "mainstream" offerings, and will
>> make it available in some cheap/efficient manner (ie iTunes). As I've said
> numerous times, my fear
>> is that the quality level will be leagues worse than the master media and
> even worse than the
>> original release media.
>>
>> Anyway, a little veered from the Community Radio topic, but it started
> there! ;)
>>
> Well, the big difference is that you are thinking in terms of (I'm guessing
> here)
> classical music, mainly from the LP or even the stereo LP era. For this, you
> would
> need/want at least "CD quality" sound...probably two-channel...for
> "webcasting"
> and for "community" FM. The former takes a lot of bandwidth...and I have no
> idea
> what the latter would require!
>
> In my case, what I own...and what I'd like to webcast...are my 40,000-odd
> (some QUITE odd) 78's. Of those, about 98-99% are (at least currently)
> public domain up here in the "frozen northland"...and, better yet,
> they are all mono and most of them have minimal bandwidth (even the
> electrics cut off around 6 to 8KHz). So, MP3's of my old acoustic
> discs won't...in fact CAN'T...sound worse than the originals!
>
> What I might consider doing is to convert them to MP3's, and then
> assemble THOSE into one large MP3 file (how does one do that?)...
>
> Steven C. Barr