Re: [ARSCLIST] Early stereo mass market tapes

[David Lennick <dlennick@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Steven C. Barr(x)" wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Karl Miller" <lyaa071@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> > As for the discs...I have a several dozen discs at home in a section of my
> > collection which I call, "It's Stereo." It includes everything from games
> > of Ping Pong to choruses moving from the left to the right speaker, also a
> > series of discs on RCA, the LSA series plus electronic works like
> > Stockhausen's Kontakte which made heavy use of panning.
> >
> > Most of these are especially fun listening with headphones.
> >
> Well, in those early days, the idea was to show off the fact that one
> actually owned a STEREO sound system! Common novelty items also included
> trains and/or racing cars moving from one speaker to the other (which
> could have been disquieting if one's speakers were hooked up "backwards!").

Matter of fact, there's a television network in Canada called Global which still
doesn't know that it has reversed channels on about half its programming. A car
will drive off to the right and you'll hear it on the left (and no, my living
room speakers aren't reversed).

> The ones I recall were the first stereo Beatles LP's...on which,
> when one played only one channel one only heard half the group!

Which of course was never intended to be the case. By the way, some really early
Capitol LPs (aside from the Fab Four) had wide "hole in the middle" stereo
spread, and they never bothered to remix them when reissuing..like "Duets with
the Spanish Guitar".

I remember some other early stereo LPs that made their way into radio station
libraries and were still in use in the middle and late sixties, when we were
pointing out whenever possible that we were broadcasting in "scintillating
stereo" (or "magnificent mono"). Many of them sounded gawdawful when broadcast,
especially when the entire program shifted from one channel to the other and the
compressor got hold of the empty channel (Felix Slatkin's Magnificent Strings
were the worst). And then there were the Twin Pianos of Ronnie Aldrich. Twin, my
Aunt Fanny..they played the melody on the left for a while, then they played it
on the right for a while. To this day I can't understand why anybody would have
bought a Ronnie Aldrich album. Now the Fifty Guitars of Tommy Garrett..now
you're talking!

dl