First Generation Radio Archives (now http://www.radioarchives.com/ ) used to be a good alternative although many of the available recordings still suffered from NR anomalies.  Once upon a time there were MANY, MANY unique and obscure recordings offered on a pay per loan type of service.  Since then it's deteriorated to box sets of fairly common stuff with a few exceptions.

They also had regular auctions of some of the original source material with label pictures at affordable minimums.  Sadly the graphics and the low minimums have since gone the way of Tara in the Old South.  

Martin 

-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tom Fine
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 11:33 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] old thread -- War of the Worlds

There is a guy in the DC area, last name Ellis, sells better-sounding OTR. He may be only selling
MP3 nowadays but at one time he'd sell WAV too. I'm sorry to be vague, I forgot his first name and contact details. He was the only source I ever found to get all of the Edward R. Murrow "Hear It Now" programs from 1950-51. That is my favorite non-fiction OTR show, groundbreaking in many ways, a touchstone for electronic journalism.

When I was a kid, I used to seek out OTR "nostalgia" shows on the radio, and sent plenty of paper-route money to David Goldin's Radio Yesteryear. But as an adult, I have limited interest in the old drama and other fiction shows. "Dragnet" and "Suspense" are OK for background noise when repairing something in the workshop or the like, but usually I choose music instead.

Of great interest still are "news and actuality" broadcasts. Goldin used to have some really neat various snippets of live events coverage that haven't been offered since. I should have bought more of his custom-made half-track reels, but those were $$$$$.

-- Tom Fine

----- Original Message -----
From: "Randy Watts" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, April 10, 2013 12:06 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] old thread -- War of the Worlds


> Trying to find old radio broadcasts like these in decent condition is a pretty good trick these 
> days. I'm convinced most old radio shows on the web originate from twenty-five year old cassettes 
> that were high-speed duplicated on cheap tape and were generally a dozen generations removed from 
> the original. These cassettes are transferred into a computer using an old Radio Shack dubbing 
> deck and "restored" by guys who figure that if a little hiss reduction is good, then lots and lots 
> of it is even better. The final result is then compressed to the lowest bit rate MP3 possible and 
> posted online. And if the results are nearly unlistenable, well, one website once made the claim 
> that it was old radio. It wasn't supposed to sound good.
>
> Randy
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> On Wed, Apr 10, 2013 10:06 AM CDT Tom Fine wrote:
>
>>I think I captured those web pages. Did that website also contain a listing of the Campbell's Soup 
>>Hour broadcasts with many of the same people?
>>
>>Mercury Theatre On The Air is my favorite fiction OTR series. I've managed to collect up most of 
>>the episodes in decent audio quality.
>