Cool article Paul. Seems like everyone was modding gear back then. Perhaps that's were the beloved soul and vibe came from on all that vintage gear.

Also fascinating was them cutting vynal at half spend to get the maximum number of watts on to disc.

Recording has so much history and evolution for an art-science that has only existed 115 years or so.

I wonder if we have got into the habit of believing contemporary practice has a right and wrong. Decca and EMI were giants back then, but did it differently. So much of their technique was because of the space they recorded in. We spend too much time adding mm to mic spacing, or calculating time delays, when these people bunged their trusted mic cluster up, and if the sound wasn't right, they added baffles and reflectors and added spot mics. All the things we just don't do any more. Bits of slotted strip, brackets and rope to make classic recordings that we still consider to be examples of excellence, and made money. Nowadays, we simply don't experiment.

Fascinating...I wonder how phase issues came into play, and how they overcome this back then with early stereo recordings?
Or was it a case where much of these recordings were done in mono ?

I think there's great old stuff, and great new stuff... and I think there's terrible old stuff, and terrible new stuff.

I can enjoy the beauty and warmth of black and white film; with movies like Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon, just as much as I can enjoy the hi-tech, cutting edge, 3 billion color cinematography of Batman or Return Of The King.

DonnyThompson, post: 436444, member: 46114 wrote: I can enjoy the beauty and warmth of black and white film; with movies like Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon

Theres' two of my favorites right there...I never tire of watching these two great movies.

I have watched them both again this past month...classics.