The following from Copeland's manual has always puzzled me, and I wonder
if anyone can shed light on the reference to "Victor’s then-unique
use of multiple
limiters (essentially one on each mike)", since I've never heard of
this from any other
source. This may originate in Ref. 60, Wireless World (1941), which
I have not
seen. RCA Victor may have experimented with limiters in 1941, but
Copeland's
statement can leave the impression that this was common practice.
> 6.71 Various RCA characteristics
> Ref. 60 (July 1941) is the earliest contemporary reference I have
> found which describes RCA Victor using pre-emphasis on its 78s,
> although the time constant was not given. Straight listening
> suggests the idea was tried somewhat earlier, and we saw in section
> 6.23 that Moyer wrote about RCA’s Western Electric systems with pre-
> emphasis at 2500Hz (corresponding to 63.6 microseconds); but I am
> deeply sceptical. It seems to me far more likely that, if something
> which had been mastered direct-to-disc was reissued on microgroove,
> the remastering engineer would simply have treated everything the
> same. And I consider it likely that judging by “pure sound” clues,
> Victor’s then-unique use of multiple limiters (essentially one on
> each mike), would itself have resulted in a “brighter” sound.
Doug Pomeroy
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