Quoting ARSCLIST automatic digest system <[log in to unmask]>:

>
>     On Wednesday, April 10, 2019, 10:11:33 AM CDT, Steven Smolian  
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>  I've found about 50% of the mono LPs I've been dubbing are off-pitch, mostly
> sharp, or so my Korg tuner informs me.  Both the Menotti Sebastian with
> Stokowski and his Violin Concerto with Spivakovsky and Munch are sharp maybe
> 15-20 cents.

Despite what virtually all claim to the contrary, many (I'm tempted to  
say most) orchestras tune higher than A = 440 Hz. (A professional  
musician friend of my quips that there's a reason it's called tuning  
*up*.) The Boston Symphony is famous for tuning to A = 444 (or is it  
445?); the Vienna Philharmonic also tunes well above A = 440. I'm sure  
there are plenty of other examples. In addition, pitch drifts over  
time, usually higher, but a good professional group will still play in  
tune with itself.

So what you say doesn't surprise me, and, frankly, if it were me, I  
wouldn't sweat it.


> This is not tape drift- a problem encountered on old tape masters- the Ampex
> 350 was prone to this problem- when splicing together the end  of one eel
> with a segment from the beginning of another or if done on two recorders
> should they have been running at slightly different speeds.. 

And setting the speed on the Ampex Model 300, which is done by  
adjusting the "dig" of the capstan idler into a flywheel, is even  
dicier, particularly since most people don't RTFM about how to do it  
(hint: it isn't the intuitive way) and if adjusted intuitively they  
don't hold speed adjustment particularly well. (The Model 300 does  
hold the speed adjustment well if it's done using the procedure in the  
manual.) The Ampex Model 300 was used for at least most of the RCA  
Living Stereo recordings and I believe absolutely all of the Mercury  
Living Presence stereo recordings that were issued and that were not  
recorded on magnetic film.

Howard Sanner