Commercially produced electrically recorded sound is turning 100 this year, will it still be around for the next 100 years?
Various experiments with electrical recording actually began back to 1919. This system was perfected at the Bell Telephone Laboratories back in 1924 and the first commercial electric recordings were issued by Victor and Columbia back in 1925. The electrical recording that birthed the multi-million dollar music industry we know today is a system that used a microphone at the performing end. The microphone generated tiny electrical impulses that represented a replica of the original sound; a thermionic / vacuum tube based amplifier increased the strength of the signal picked up by the microphone so the electrical impulses can be strong enough to power the cutting head or a recording stylus.
Although the early results of the electrical recording system were characterized as strident in comparison to the earlier acoustic recording system, they boasted the then impressive frequency range of 100 Hz to 5,000 Hz. One of the editorials by Compton Mackenzie on the November 1925 issue of Gramophone magazine on the introduction of electrical recording goes: “the exaggeration of sibilants by the new method is abominable, and there is often a harshness which recalls some of the worst excesses of the past. The recording of massed strings is atrocious from an impressionistic standpoint.” Having read about this back in 1995, Compton Mackenzie’s comments on the first batch of commercially produced electrical recordings back in 1995 reminds me of criticisms of the sound quality of Redbook CDs in comparison to vinyl records during the heyday of the mid 1990s vinyl records revival.
Given that the electrical recording system allowed the manufacture of recorded sound a lot less expensive in comparison to the Edison era acoustic recording system, in 1925, the Brunswick Company marketed the first all electric phonograph. The Radio Corporation of America (RCA) purchased the Victor Corporation in 1928 and a year later, RCA converted the Victor plant largely to the manufacture of radio sets, while Edison discontinued production of all phonographs and records. During the first years of the Great Depression that began during the last quarter of 1929, the phonograph and record business dwindled but later took an upswing during the 1930s. Record playing attachments for plugging into 1930s era radio sets were introduced which also made the 1930s to be known as the “Golden Age Of Radio”. Also, juke boxes – first developed by Edison – also enjoyed a vogue during this time.
Early electrical recordings - also known as 78 rpm shellacs - that are now “celebrating” their 100th Anniversary were largely ignored by enthusiasts during the start of the 1990s vinyl records revival because “younger” audio enthusiasts who grew up listening to vinyl back in the 1960s and 1970s were largely ignorant on how to play “pre World War II era” shellacs. Thanks to “older” audiophiles giving advice on how to play 78 rpm shellacs back in the 1990s, younger audiophiles can begin collecting 78 rpm shellacs as a hobby. Back then the Garrard 401 turntable was the most cost effective way to play older shellacs. Columbia records first batch of electrical recordings were recorded at 80 rpm until the late 1920s and thus an 80 rpm capable Garrard 401 populating the second hand record shops back in the 1990s came as a “godsend”.
