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Author Topic: accidental stereo  (Read 2118 times)

scottoliphant

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accidental stereo
« on: March 28, 2006, 10:07:29 AM »

pretty neat, anyone heard this? I'm curious
http://www.newscientist.com/backpage.ns?id=mg18925432.100

"Accidental stereo

IT IS now 20 years or so since Californian record collectors Brad Kay and Steven Lasker came up with the intriguing theory that some old mono recordings were accidentally made in stereo, long before LP stereo was launched in 1958.

In the 1920s and 1930s there was no tape, so studios cut recordings directly onto wax discs. Because a lot could go wrong, they played safe by simultaneously cutting two discs. Sometimes they played extra safe by using two microphones, one for each disc. The result was a matched pair of recordings, each with a different sound perspective.

Brad Kay hunted down matched pairs of old discs and tried playing one as the left channel and the other as the right. Some engineers who heard his "accidental stereo" recreations thought it was just an illusion created by slight playback differences between two identical recordings. Others thought the stereo sounded too real to be written off.

Then, in 1992, an engineer at EMI's Abbey Road studios in London found a matched pair of discs of Elgar's Kingdom prelude recorded in 1933, and tried playing them together. EMI was so impressed by the stereo effect that a company press release promised "a previously unpublished true stereo version".

But inside EMI there were mighty disputes. The doubters won and the release was cancelled. "We knew what the result would be - only fake stereo," pronounced a spokesman. New Scientist begged to differ (10 October 1992, p 19). Why not give listeners a chance to hear the effect and decide for themselves, we argued - but to no avail.

So we were thrilled to discover that independent record label Naxos has released a CD of Elgar's music conducted by the composer himself (Naxos 8.111022). Twenty-one tracks are in mono, but tagged on the end is what the sleeve notes describe as a bonus track, the Cockaigne Overture from 1933 in "accidental stereo".

"Listeners can judge for themselves," says Naxos - at last."

bblackwood

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Re: accidental stereo
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2006, 11:34:15 AM »

Umm, ok.

Seems to me the 'doubters' were right.
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Brad Blackwood
euphonic masters
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