Mr. Field! Great to see you again on camera. Absolutely delightful to see the turntable spinning once again today! Thank you very much indeed. Cheers 🍻🏴
Many thanks! Yes -the trials & tribulations of Covid &c. are ending - though others are threatening... 🙁 But we're certainly back, & have a number of projects 'on the slipway', so to speak. Take care, & thanks again. 😊
You're very kind! Covid has been real rubbish for a couple of years, but at least it seems to be on the way out? So we can all try to get back to work, learning about things. All the best to your & your family.
Wow! Glad you like this stuff, Jean-Paul! We will try to get morw stuff up on YT, but most of it is already there!! 🤔 We will have to look for really rare stuff! Take care, Norman.
Mr Field, a.k.a. The Mad Scientist: glad to have another great lesson from you. Thanks the Almighty One you do look fine and in a mood for more interesting & learning videos. Besides a Scientist you're a great Professor. Take good care!
Thanks Boris. There's so much interesting stuff, isn't there? The prehistory of electric sound recording is fascinating - even if it didn't work very well! It goes back at least to 1878! More later... Cheers, Norman.
Utterly wonderful, and even more so to hear both takes of this fab record - thanks so much Norman. It never ceases to amaze me how many 78s are slight 'swingers'. A really significant proportion, even with the major labels. Most irritating for really discerning listening!
Thanks for writing, BCN. Your sense of pitch is very much superior to mine - for I never detected any tendency for pitch fluctuation. However, on examining the discs closely, you are absolutely correct. There are, in fact, three copies of this Duophone here. They were examined under close-up. All three are 'swingers', but one of them has a compound element... that is, a swing on each rotation but also, a 'throw' - which is a 'wobble' even *within* each single revolution. This can only be due to a deformation of the pressing - one part of the disc, durng pressing, has travelled more (or less) than the rest of it. A 'swing within a swing', so to speak. Congrats on great observation. Best regards, Norman.
@@bixanorak Thanks for your thoughtful reply Norman! Always fascinating. Like any thermoplastic, I suppose there is the possibility of infinitesimal "creep" over many years. I sometimes wonder whether discs with such wobbles (as opposed to simple eccentricity) might be due to storage on edge in the same position for many, many years - even though that's nevertheless probably the best way to store 78s - - - or due to temperature control issues when moulded, perhaps having inherent stresses in the material according to how the compound flowed and cooled in the press (and incidentally I'm pretty sure the latter sort of thing is why some discs seem predestined to crack). Apologies for this somewhat useless digression! Best wishes, Andy (good friend of Ian Maxted whom I believe you know).
Thanks for writing. Yes, it rapidly dawned on them, that the electromagnetic armature had to be _very small_ to avoid resonances, let alone 'needle talk'. The success of that BTH model was due to its really small armature. More videos later - take care and all the best to you & yours.
Nice to see you back on camera! This old pickup still has an excellent reproduction of the recording. Do you use a sound filter for the reproduction, not RIAA, but filter systems were already used at the time.
Hi there, Ben. You are right! Inductance/capacitance filters for frequency correction appeared very early on! Late 1920s for sure - maybe earlier. However, the output from these electro-magnetic pickups was very high, which is why they often came with a gain control as a separate unit, but soon, many had a volume control built into the arm. I just measured the output of that BTH head from an old 78 test disc - at 1250 c/s it put out 170 mV; at 1500 c/s 200 mV; at 1740 c/s 400 mV; at 2000 c/s back to 230 mV. (Sorry, Heinrich; we're talking vintage units here, so c/s, OK? But don't worry; I wouldn't dream of calling 14 MHz, 14 Mc/s - though they were Mc/s when I was growing up! 😀) The point is, that a signal of several hundred millivolts can go into an Auxiliary input of an general purpose audio amplifier. That was what I did; so no EQ was applied to that 78. Of course, with more advanced pickups & equipment, there is always the danger of playing 78s with the RIAA EQ, the default for the Phono input (if indeed there is one!) I hardly need to state that such a procedure is completely wrong, indeed, distastrous, for virtually all 78 rpm discs. Best 73, Norman. G4LQF, ex-WS0B.
CZcams user "Techmoan" just uploaded a video today of a brand new modern music release on a 4 minute Edison cylinder. Presumably they always sounded awful and the type of music it is really suffers. I compare the quality to a telephone hold system which pipes a radio station as hold music. 78s, on their best day are on par with AM radio. It's a shame. I really wish we could get even cassette tape level quality of the pre-war music. After the war, most music got recorded originally on tape. The absolute best of pre-war (non-vinyl) 78s are at best 10khz frequency response.
Mr. Field! Great to see you again on camera. Absolutely delightful to see the turntable spinning once again today! Thank you very much indeed. Cheers 🍻🏴
Many thanks! Yes -the trials & tribulations of Covid &c. are ending - though others are threatening... 🙁 But we're certainly back, & have a number of projects 'on the slipway', so to speak. Take care, & thanks again. 😊
Mr Field, so nice to see you back in action again on CZcams. Regards from South Africa.
You're very kind! Covid has been real rubbish for a couple of years, but at least it seems to be on the way out? So we can all try to get back to work, learning about things. All the best to your & your family.
Fantastic!
Wow! Glad you like this stuff, Jean-Paul! We will try to get morw stuff up on YT, but most of it is already there!! 🤔 We will have to look for really rare stuff! Take care, Norman.
@@bixanorak You could play with that lovely view out your windows, and it would be nice as well.
Mr Field, a.k.a. The Mad Scientist: glad to have another great lesson from you. Thanks the Almighty One you do look fine and in a mood for more interesting & learning videos. Besides a Scientist you're a great Professor. Take good care!
Thanks Boris. There's so much interesting stuff, isn't there? The prehistory of electric sound recording is fascinating - even if it didn't work very well! It goes back at least to 1878! More later... Cheers, Norman.
Utterly wonderful, and even more so to hear both takes of this fab record - thanks so much Norman. It never ceases to amaze me how many 78s are slight 'swingers'. A really significant proportion, even with the major labels. Most irritating for really discerning listening!
Thanks for writing, BCN. Your sense of pitch is very much superior to mine - for I never detected any tendency for pitch fluctuation. However, on examining the discs closely, you are absolutely correct. There are, in fact, three copies of this Duophone here. They were examined under close-up. All three are 'swingers', but one of them has a compound element... that is, a swing on each rotation but also, a 'throw' - which is a 'wobble' even *within* each single revolution. This can only be due to a deformation of the pressing - one part of the disc, durng pressing, has travelled more (or less) than the rest of it. A 'swing within a swing', so to speak. Congrats on great observation. Best regards, Norman.
@@bixanorak Thanks for your thoughtful reply Norman! Always fascinating. Like any thermoplastic, I suppose there is the possibility of infinitesimal "creep" over many years. I sometimes wonder whether discs with such wobbles (as opposed to simple eccentricity) might be due to storage on edge in the same position for many, many years - even though that's nevertheless probably the best way to store 78s - - - or due to temperature control issues when moulded, perhaps having inherent stresses in the material according to how the compound flowed and cooled in the press (and incidentally I'm pretty sure the latter sort of thing is why some discs seem predestined to crack). Apologies for this somewhat useless digression! Best wishes, Andy (good friend of Ian Maxted whom I believe you know).
Hi Norman what very nice 78 record plays really loud love it I Subscribed to you looking forward to seen more videos cheers Troupee. 👍🎷🎷☘
great stuff norman . i have a few of the BTH pickups very nice sounding pickups . keep it up !!!!
Thanks for writing. Yes, it rapidly dawned on them, that the electromagnetic armature had to be _very small_ to avoid resonances, let alone 'needle talk'. The success of that BTH model was due to its really small armature. More videos later - take care and all the best to you & yours.
@@bixanorak thanks Norman. I'm going to play with my 1939 rca Victor record cutter this week . Time to get more polycarbonate ..
Sounds better than most of my 78 collection. Hope you used a fresh needle.
Thanks for helping to preserve this stuff.
You're welcome! More to come, we hope. In the meantime, all the best & take care. Cheers, Norman.
Nice to see you back on camera!
This old pickup still has an excellent reproduction of the recording.
Do you use a sound filter for the reproduction, not RIAA, but filter systems were already used at the time.
Hi there, Ben. You are right! Inductance/capacitance filters for frequency correction appeared very early on! Late 1920s for sure - maybe earlier. However, the output from these electro-magnetic pickups was very high, which is why they often came with a gain control as a separate unit, but soon, many had a volume control built into the arm. I just measured the output of that BTH head from an old 78 test disc - at 1250 c/s it put out 170 mV; at 1500 c/s 200 mV; at 1740 c/s 400 mV; at 2000 c/s back to 230 mV. (Sorry, Heinrich; we're talking vintage units here, so c/s, OK? But don't worry; I wouldn't dream of calling 14 MHz, 14 Mc/s - though they were Mc/s when I was growing up! 😀)
The point is, that a signal of several hundred millivolts can go into an Auxiliary input of an general purpose audio amplifier. That was what I did; so no EQ was applied to that 78.
Of course, with more advanced pickups & equipment, there is always the danger of playing 78s with the RIAA EQ, the default for the Phono input (if indeed there is one!) I hardly need to state that such a procedure is completely wrong, indeed, distastrous, for virtually all 78 rpm discs.
Best 73,
Norman.
G4LQF, ex-WS0B.
@@bixanorak Thanks for the info.
Did you need to change the rubber suspension on the needle-anchor?
CZcams user "Techmoan" just uploaded a video today of a brand new modern music release on a 4 minute Edison cylinder. Presumably they always sounded awful and the type of music it is really suffers. I compare the quality to a telephone hold system which pipes a radio station as hold music. 78s, on their best day are on par with AM radio.
It's a shame. I really wish we could get even cassette tape level quality of the pre-war music. After the war, most music got recorded originally on tape. The absolute best of pre-war (non-vinyl) 78s are at best 10khz frequency response.
beautiful quality so bad is that record not.
Yes, indeed. But still, the other take is better, even if the singing is more quiet? Thanks for writing, and best wishes to you & your family. Norman.