Thank you for reminding me how much I enjoyed the Chesky vinyl. Those are great albums for the casual classic music fan.
Chesky: One of the Worst Audiophile Labels?
- Thread starter Ron Resnick
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Roy Wallace worked with producer Jimmy Walker in many of the very earliest of Decca's stereo recorders starting in 1954, with Ansermet and his L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande based in Geneva that Ansermet founded and conducted until a short time before his death. Wallace had some "health" issues which cut short his recording engineering career. He has 160 credits in my Decca database all between 1954 and 1963, (compared to the 1000 credits for Wilkie). Decca then had him work on the design of many of their most important mixers. Decca did a lot of home-grown electronics and gave their engineers a lot of freedom to innovate. I interviewed Tony Griffiths for my Decca book, back in 2013. He invented the Decca digital recording system in the late 1970's by modifying a JVC video recorder to record audio at 48kHz/16 bit.
Larry
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https://www.amazon.com/Life-Death-Classical-Music-Recordings-ebook/dp/B001O1O6R2/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16J7LFSNVVZ7X&keywords=the+life+and+death+of+classical+music&qid=1680704722&sprefix=Life+and+death+of+classical,aps,312&sr=8-1
Reading this book at present. Fascinating. A lot of info on the beginnings of the major classical labels. Didn't know Decca was so "progressive" in its day.
I reviewed the Chesky Power of the Orchestra and Scheherazade today and compared them to my AP tapes. The LPs, by themselves, were not bad at all. I certainly didn't hear any of the glaring faults that Tom Port reported. Mine are the 180g versions. There is some compression on the Power of the Orchestra, I think, and the dynamics are a bit subdued compared to the tape, but by no means lifeless. Tonally, they are indistinguishable from the tapes, and I do not detect the manipulation in tonal balance that he alluded to. I suspect his system might not be flat, if he was honestly reporting his findings, and mine certainly is as I have measured it repeatedly with test LPs and reference tapes. In my opinion, they are very good as far as vinyl goes. I do not have the original shaded dogs for comparison, and I suspect those might sound different from the tapes. Should we take the original LP releases as the reference standard, or the master tapes before any mastering was done ? This is the philosophical question. I think the AP tapes were copied flat. Maybe they should put it through an EQ board to try and reproduce the shaded dog sound and offer this version for those who pine for the "authentic" feel.
There is some end of side distortion at the end of both LPs. Background noise is pretty good. The tapes are still significantly superior in terms of scale, dynamics and transparency. The solo violin in Scheherazade is just that much more life-like. Again, a better vinyl rig might pull the distance closer. I have four buyers expressing interest for all 6 LPs within two days of listing them, but I think the price I am asking for is also pretty attractive. Will be selling them tomorrow.
Adrian, good luck on your sale. Mine are all gone (including the original Power of the Orch shaded dog) with my entire collection. So I only have the tapes. I did resplice the Power of the Orch tape, so the entire Pictures is on one reel and Night on Bald Mtn is on the other reel.
One story about Decca I tell in my book is that near the beginning of WWII, Arthur Haddy was contacted by the War Department on whether Decca could help in their detection of German submarines which were wreaking havoc on the British ships. The problem was that the pilots could not distinguish the British submarines from the German submarines because their testing gear only reproduced frequencies up to about 10K Hz. So could Decca increase the frequency to at least 14kHz or more. Decca got it to 14 or 15kHz which allowed them to distinguish the different submarine sounds. Decca used that technology to create their ffrr after the war (full frequency range recording) which they started to use in their 78 records and then to their first LPs. Later, when stereo came along, this became FFSS (full frequency Stereophonic Sound), which are on the labels of the Decca (and in the US London) records.
One of the Decca engineers I interviewed for my book told me about a talk that Haddy had given telling the story and I found it on the internet. I see now a very long 75 minute interview, but what I heard was a shorter formal talk. I listened to part of the interview and I could only find some references to the air ministry contacting them to make records up to 14kHz. The talk I heard had more detail about the submarines.
Larry
One story about Decca I tell in my book is that near the beginning of WWII, Arthur Haddy was contacted by the War Department on whether Decca could help in their detection of German submarines which were wreaking havoc on the British ships. The problem was that the pilots could not distinguish the British submarines from the German submarines because their testing gear only reproduced frequencies up to about 10K Hz. So could Decca increase the frequency to at least 14kHz or more. Decca got it to 14 or 15kHz which allowed them to distinguish the different submarine sounds. Decca used that technology to create their ffrr after the war (full frequency range recording) which they started to use in their 78 records and then to their first LPs. Later, when stereo came along, this became FFSS (full frequency Stereophonic Sound), which are on the labels of the Decca (and in the US London) records.
One of the Decca engineers I interviewed for my book told me about a talk that Haddy had given telling the story and I found it on the internet. I see now a very long 75 minute interview, but what I heard was a shorter formal talk. I listened to part of the interview and I could only find some references to the air ministry contacting them to make records up to 14kHz. The talk I heard had more detail about the submarines.
Larry
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Nice story, thank you for sharing. I can share some of my thoughts about Decca's function on this subject based on my background.
It is almost impossible to distinguish a submerged German sub from a British sub with WWII sonar technology. Actually high frequency (10-15KHz) is not very useful for detecting submarines at all. For this purpose low frequency is better cause low frequency travels longer distances and being absorbed less by the sea. Low frequency noise created by pumps, valves, piping etc can pass through the hull of the submarine and travel long distances as well as propeller cavitation. Sound propagation highly depends on Sound Velocity Profile (SVP) but in any case a sonar that is useful to detect submarines requires best electronics and hydrophones of the day. Decca may be asked to help improving sonar (ASDIC) system electronics and hydrophones.
Another possibility could be to help developing passive and active sonobuoys cause that is the only way an aircraft can operate a sonar.
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Arthur Haddy - Wikipedia
"His exploitation of the greatly enhanced frequency range was the basis of Decca's famous "ffrr" – full frequency range recordings. So significant were his developments that his original ffrr cutting head is on permanent display in the Science Museum in London."
There was the Decca Radar Company in the early 50's.
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