----- Original Message -----
From: "David Lennick" <[log in to unmask]>
> Anyone remember, or even hear of, a label called FORTISSIMO produced by
> Riverside in 1961? Super-quiet surfaces (wonder how they managed that?
> Riverside never turned out a quiet disc in their lives), discs cut from
> the inside out (changer owners must have loved that), master tapes
> recorded at 60 IPS "with the heads oriented horizontally" (whaaaaa..?), a
> 400hz alignment tone, and repertoire such as Racing Cars, Jets, Pipe Organ
> (miked from inside, I think) and Banjo Polkas.
> Amazing what turns up in some of these old audio magazines that I've never
> run across in over 45 years of record collecting.
>
Well, having kinda "been there in them days"...the very first thing that
folks with
expensive "hi-fi" systems wanted were recordings of racing cars, jets and
trains...
so they could turn their machines up...and then, when their friends regained
their hearing, ask them, "Didn't that sound just like a REAL (whatever it
had
been)...?!"
Of course, once stereo appeared, this was even MORE fun, because it was
not only as LOUD as <a real wotever>, but also sounded like it came from
"over there," went right past the listeners, and disappeared "over at the
other
end!" There were, as well, MANY "dixieland" records on those audiophile
labels as well...I even bought a few ("Dukes Of Dixieland," IIRC).
...stevenc
