I don't think the RIAA curve was introduced until around 1955. 

db

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> On Jun 1, 2017, at 1:01 AM, Paul Stamler <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> 
> Hi folks:
> 
> Here's the background. In an interview in Audio Magazine, Moses Asch pf Folkways records said that he had had some LPs of historical importance -- particularly in the Ethnic Folkways series -- cut flat, rather than using the usual pre-emphasis curves. He said he did that so that future generations could play them without messing around with de-emphasis. When I interviewed Peter Bartók, who cut a lot of records for Folkways, I asked him about this. He said he never heard of such a thing.
> 
> Well, I may have run across one of those records. I transferred it flat (no RIAA), declicked it in Izotope Rx, then started messing with the EQ. I tried LF de-emphasis at 500Hz (the RIAA standard) and 629Hz (suggested for pre-RIAA Folkways records by several sources, including an old ARSC journal. Both sounded horribly boomy. I tried doing a 1st-order HF rolloff at 1,580Hz, and with that compensation (no LF de-emphasis, 1,580Hz HF rolloff) what I heard sounded believable, if not exactly hi-fi.
> 
> This album was P433, "Maori Songs of New Zealand", dated 1952; it's entirely field recordings.
> 
> My question: have any of you run across anything like this -- a Folkways LP which plays back more accurately without LF de-emphasis?
> 
> Mr. Bartók suggested to me in our interview that early LPs may not have used formal pre-emphasis, because the resonances of the cutter head would have produced a rising HF response.  So I'm wondering if this LP was cut that way -- no formal HF pre-emphasis (but a peaky cutter head), no LF pre-emphasis?
> 
> By the way, other Folkways LPs I've transferred (including "Songs and Dances of Norway", which had its own issues, mainly with recording speed) hewed to the RIAA curve -- at least, closely enough to sound okay when played back with it.
> 
> Peace,
> Paul Stamler
> 
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