From: "Doug" <[email protected]> > I can't imagine any record maker in the thirties intending their discs to be > played with a sound box.>
Were the heavy electric pickups any better? I had a Brunswick Panatrope for a while, and though I never got the amp working, the GE/RCA motor worked great, quiet and steady. The pickup head was hinged but not counterbalanced, and it could eat through 30's 78's with the best of 'em. (The 'plinth' board, if you will, also generated a roomful of acoustic output.) > All right, on another topic. Magnetic tape recording was IN USE in Germany > in the thirties. Do you think that the recording companies in this country > didn't know about it? It would be a threat to their markets to have a > recordable medium in the hands of buyers who would otherwise buy disc > recordings. It proved to be just that, after Jack Mullin imported his two > Magnetophones at the end of WWII, and Crosby went on the air, using one of > them in 1947. With what Germany was brewing up during that time, I wonder if any technology was leaving the German borders. I'm no WWII expert, but I've always just assumed there was an iron veil over all the sciences in 30's Germany. This article on John Mullin touches on this, saying that "Although the German technical press covered advances during the 1920s, the '30s, and even the early 1940s, Britons and Americans were largely unaware of these technology developments." It's a fascinating read and answers a lot of questions (while raising a few); here's the link: http://www.tvhandbook.com/History/History_mullin.htm One wonders. The first magnetic recording was demonstrated in 1898 by a Danish inventor named Poulsen. Seems the more we know, the more there is to learn. I'm gonna go finish that Mullin article. -r.
