Did The Music of Christmas (Carmen Dragon and the Hollywood Bowl Symphony Orchestra) make it to one of those super R-T-R tapes? That's a title that would make a splendid audiophile reissue.
Here's a list that MMM posted 5 years ago on another forum, and it may fill a few catalog-number holes:
This is all very interesting. It seems there's always some obscure format I've never heard of popping up around here.
The on-tape labels are an odd sort of gold foil that doesn't photograph or scan very well, but they look nice in person. Matt
After reading this thread, I just played my 2-tracks of “Love Is The Thing” and “Space Escapade”, and boy, they don’t suck! Since the Capitol stereo mix on the “Z” series is different than the LP stereo mixes, can we say the same for the RCA 2-tracks compared to their LP counterparts, or was this just a Capitol thing?
I only know Capitol, sorry. Play SPACE ESCAPADE again, this time, reverse the speaker leads on one of your speakers. Report back.
Thanks for the samples Matt of the Capitol tapes. Wonderful! I would pay dearly to hear some of these titles. Keely Smith and Nelson Riddle - oh yes.
Nope. Three by Nat, three by Gleason, one Frank. My guess? Had COME FLY WITH ME not had stereo defects, it would have been released this way, but even the stereo LP didn't come out until something like 1962. Matt
I remember walking by the Mobile Fidelity demo room at CES and looking at one from a stack. I thought, "eh, I'm happy with the CD." It didn't occur to me that they might be collectors' items someday... I can recall passing by all kinds of weird late-1950s pre-recorded reel tapes at garage sales 20 years later, stuff like this: I also passed up some of those weird early RCA cassettes, but eventually managed to add one to the archives, just because it was so bizarre.
I switch around the left speaker, and to my ears the tape sounded more in phase than before. Then for fun I did the right speaker and replayed the same three cuts. The violins now sound more life like (matter of fact the highs are crisper) and the midrange is simply richer.
Vidiot, you do realize that the woman on that tape cover represents the unattainable fantasy of a large percentage of the nerds on this forum, right? Matt
Through even the '90s, you could find the '50s 2-track pre-recorded tapes cheap. They were dismissed on the basis of the repertoire (very little rock or big name collectable jazz artists). It wasn't until eBay really took hold that interest in those started to accelerate. I don't see too many cheap 2-tracks anymore.
Somebody was buying those tapes in 1958! Many of the ads in the Stereo Review mags of that period are hilarious. One of my long-dormant projects was to digitize every issue as PDFs and either license them for sale, or at least post them somewhere.
Capitol's 2 track tapes are real ribbons of sonic beauty. Pure poetry. I only have a challenged copy of "The Stars In Stereo" and "The Music Man" in superb condition. Angel actually issued at least 8 titles on 2 track tape. I like 2 track tapes a great deal. Capitol made great ones, Westminster also did. Mercury is a favorite. RCA Classical is nice, the pop 2 tracks are very hit and miss. Bel Canto tapes are usually great.
I had forgotten that over two years ago, as part of this thread, I had posted brief samples from Nat "King" Cole's "Just One of Those Things" reel, #ZD-28, still posted (Quicktime required) here: http://web.mac.com/mlutthans/iWeb/Site 52/ZD28 1.html (There's a Sinatra link embedded in that page, but it's no longer active, so don't click it unless you want to see photos of the inside of a movie theatre.) Matt
Hi everyone, Although I have been a member of this forum for a while, this is actually my first post! This thread really caught my attention as I have the Hollywood Bowl Christmas tape. It is ZF-14 and sounds fantastic! It is a truncated version of the LP and features a different mix like the other tapes in the series. I transferred it to digital and play it at Christmastime. Some pics:
