 |
 |
Unless you are using something like a $300,000.00 Goldmund,you are better off with a good high end turntable from the early to mid 60s.I've heard a lot of them,you Linns.your Regas,what have you,and they are no match for my 50+ year old Thorens and Collaro.Technology has only gone backwards. Roger ________________________________ From: Carl Pultz <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Sent: Friday, September 7, 2012 8:40 PM Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Details on vinyl to digital re-mastering Worked for me when I was 14. But, let me ask: did Dynagroove persist because it led to success in the market, or because an executive, not in technical or A&R, but maybe in marketing, sold this to the honcho, who couldn't and wouldn't cry uncle once the bad reviews came in? Without actual info, I'd bet the continuance of Red Seal was as much momentum as anything. By the late 60s, the high-priced artists were gone. RCA did continue important work in the classics, but not, I assume, at Heifetz money. Correct me if I'm wrong. It took them years to earn back some trust in the market, if they ever did, and RCA never held classical high-ground again. One unfortunate result is that these mid-60s RCAs mostly get passed over for premium reissues, because of their bad rep. The few I've heard that have been rehabbed suffer from spotlighting, but that's a catalog that musically shouldn't languish. BTW, JGH penned a famous denunciation of Dynagroove, published in The Stereophile. I think it was Pfeiffer who maintained always that there was no big eq deal to Dynagroove. But that he did fight a tendency for them to use too many mics, something that the heavy dynamic compression makes sound too garish. As to the thin discs, some of them sounded good if they weren't warped - quiet surfaces, good dynamics, even some bass, but you had to crank them up. As with all things vinyl, it is a case by case thing, hard to make blanket judgments on sound quality. A quick fact check proves interesting. The Ives is not bad regarding distortion. I guess my record player has made some progress in 35 years. -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Randy A. Riddle Sent: Friday, September 07, 2012 9:27 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Details on vinyl to digital re-mastering I think all of you are being far too hard on RCA for Dynagroove and Dynaflex. The introduction of Dynagroove marked the transition in the mass market from dad's show-off hi-fi in the basement to stereo consoles for the masses. Dynagroove was designed to "wow" the average person who didn't care about all the technical gobbley-gook - they just wanted a bright sounding, loud record to show off that big piece of furniture in the den that happened to contain a record changer. And they stuck with it to make records sound more dynamic on the smaller record players that came later. The goal wasn't accurate reproduction of sound - the goal was tailoring the sound of their releases to a particular technology they were also selling at the time. Dynaflex was introduced to save on shipping costs and returns of broken records mishandled by shippers. If you think about the large volume of recordings that RCA had to move to pay those great artists, you can begin to understand why they had to pinch pennies and think of ways to market to the masses. RCA was simply following the market and survived many years because of it. Just remember that those crappy sounding Dynagroove discs paid for those beautiful masters you're listening to now on SACD and 180 gram remastered vinyl. rand On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Carl Pultz <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > "There's probably a business school case study in why you'd mess so > drastically with that formula." > > If not, as any resident of Rochester can tell you, Eastman Kodak is > providing an over the top example of total corporate suicide. Spectacular to > witness. > > My first experience of hifi stereo was as a kid who just got his second > speaker. (Could only afford one for Christmas, so had to wait till the next > year to get the other.) I put them at the foot of my bed, cued up > Leinsdorf's Mahler 1, laid back and discovered the Soundstage. But that's > what Dynagroove was for - to play low so your parents won't be annoyed. Like > FM radio. > > Was it Mahler 5 that was first? My older brother brought back to the US from > his 1967 Air Force duty in Spain a German pressing of that album, and a few > other RCAs like that. On the cover, they trumpeted, "Das ist DYNAGROOVE!" So > I always say it with a Hollywood Prussian voice when a great album like > Gould's Ives Sym 1 gets all frantic at the end, despite "Verzerrungen und > Übersteuerungserscheinungen entfallen!". There is no cure, even on a > tricked-out record player. >