Just to be clear, "Orthophonic" really has nothing to do with the echo effect RCA Victor added in the 1950s to its 1920s, 30s, 40s recordings? For a long time I associated Orthophonic with "horrible echo effect".
All I know is that the earliest use of the echo effect I'm familiar with is the following 45 RPM set from 1956, which states the "New Orthophonic" process was used. Now (assuming this is the first use of that effect), the question is whether RCA Victor considered the echo effect to be part of the "New Orthophonic" process or something they separately thought was a good thing to add.
Further the above, here's an LP from 1958 - one of my all-time favorite album covers, by the way - that has the echo effect added but no mention anywhere of the use of any Orthophonic process (new or otherwise).
Interesting. There’s at least one Elvis Presley LP variant like that too. See the first entry on this web page: LPM-2011 A Date With Elvis | elvisrecords.com
The clips Steve posted blew me away. I had no idea records from the 30s could sound like that. The history of RCA’s recording choices is fascinating—is there any literature that addresses this topic, or is has it mostly been passed down by word of mouth over time?
Some 78rpm are quite good 1922 ... 78rpm Records Digitized by George Blood, L.P. : Free Audio : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive
Thankfully, there’s a wealth of information about where and when RCA recording sessions were held up until the 1950s. The DHAR archives and the research by John Bolig is mind boggling. Thank goodness many detailed Victor files survived. Nice breakdowns of who played on each session, the take number used and the session recording supervisor (Leonard Joy, Ed Kirkeby, Eli Oberstein, Fred Erdman, Harry Meyetson, Steve Sholes, etc) are usually identified. But does anyone know where to locate the names of the recording engineers who worked at Camden, Chicago, NYC & Hollywood from the 1920s until the 1950s? I’ve always been fascinated about the “forgotten” people who transcribed all of those thousands of recordings back in the pre-tape days.