Historical Development of Analog Disk Recording
Technology and Artifacts Now in Existence— Shift from Mechanical to Electrical Recording Methods for Longer
Duration Recordings and Stereo Sound —1

Takeaki Anazawa■ Abstract

Chapter 2 of this study, titled “The Birth and Rise of the Phonograph,” touches on related
developments . The history of analog recordings dates back to 1877 when American inventor Thomas
Edison came up with a new phonograph that enabled users to record sound onto a recording cylinder andreplay that audio. In 1887, just 10 years later, German inventor Emile Berliner created the gramophone.
The era from that time up until the end of World War I was one where the cylinder-based recording
medium competed with the disk-based medium. Later, the disk medium, which was more conducive tomass replication, went on to dominate in the realm of analog recordings.
Chapter 3 of this study, titled The Birth of Acoustic (Mechanical) Disk Recording and Playback,describes developments in Japan with respect to audio recordings . Toward the end of the nineteenth
century, Japan began importing wax cylinder audio devices. At the beginning of the twentieth century,
Western record companies began making recordings in Japan, and then reproduced those recordings backhome for export to Japan. In 1909, a Japanese company began manufacturing disk-shaped records (single
sided 78-rpm records, 10-inches in diameter), which were released under the “Nipponophone” label. One
year later, in 1910, Japan’s ﬁrst domestically produced gramophone player was released.
Chapter 4 of this study, titled The Advent of Electrical Recording, describes circumstances ensuingafter the end of the World War I. This era marked the advent of broadcasting, the success of which
hinged on numerous developments, such as with respect to vacuum tube and microphone technologies.
Such eﬀorts ushered in an era in analog recording, beginning in 1924, where electrical recording oﬀeringsuperior audio quality came to replace earlier mechanical recording techniques that did not use electricity.
Initially, users of gramophones would have to make their own recordings for playback sometime later.
However, it became easier to mass-reproduce analog recordings with the advent of electronic recording,where records could be produced using conductive analog record masters with pre-cut grooves. Whereas
this enabled distribution of analog recordings of music, it also gave rise to issues with respect to thepiracy of music recordings.
Meanwhile, up until the introduction of magnetic recording devices in 1950, broadcasters would
create program content using disk-based recording equipment, one prime example of this being coverageof the Berlin Olympics in 1936. Japan also embarked on development of disk-based recording equipmentoﬀering performance and audio quality exceeding that of equipment from overseas, with the intent ofusing it in what were to have been the 1940 Tokyo Olympic Games. However, whereas the eventual
cancellation of those games meant that those devices were ultimately not used for that purpose, theywould later be used in broadcasting the imperial edict that brought World War II to an end. During theimmediate pre-war to post-war era, many Japanese engineers engaged in original development eﬀorts,
which yielded breakthrough technologies, such as Filmon sound belt devices, which oﬀered up to
36-minute recordings, the disk recording equipment mentioned previously, broadcast microphones, andmagnetic recording devices. These technologies would go on to form the foundations of consumer
devices developed in Japan after the war.
Chapter 5 of this study, titled The Shift to Longer-Playing and Stereo Disk Records, traces suchdevelopments. First, the chapter overviews developments with respect to methods for picking up soundwith microphones and sound ﬁeld reproduction. It then goes on to trace changes in sound pick-up andrecording technology from the recording stage to that of editing, mix down, and cutting (disk mastering),
both analog and digital. The chapter then touches on the topic of integrating recording and playback
equalizers, and that of test recordings that draw on recording disk calibration methods and monitoring ofrecording devices. Explanations are also given with respect to development of technologies for correcting
recording disk playback distortion and those for cutting grooves on recording media with up to fourchannels of audio. The latter half of Chapter 5 touches on technologies for manufacturing read-only1records and looks at improvements in materials used in making records. More specifically, this section
provides details on developments with respect to conductive properties of master recordings, the use ofelectroplating techniques with lacquer masters, manufacturing processes for master plates, mother plates
and stampers, and record manufacturing processes. It also touches on changes with respect to basematerials used in making records, and adds details about the ﬂexi disc format (ﬂexible records) and otherspecial types of records. The chapter later introduces the subject of developments in record player
technology, providing details about pick-up cartridges, tone arm and phono motors, throughout therespective gramophone, tuner equipped player and stereo set.
Chapter 6 and later chapters delve into background details necessary in understanding technologicaldevelopments. Chapter 6 goes into changes in the record and record player industries, and trends withrespect to factory shipments. Chapter 7 looks at various standards, such as international, Japanese andindustry standards related to recordings. Chapter 8 delves into numbering schemes of the International
Standard Recording Code and respective means of copyright protection. Chapter 9 conveys details about
artifacts still in existence.
As this study suggests, American companies played a large role in the early days of analog audio
recordings. On a more limited scale, Japanese engineers, fueled by a passion for such technology, also
developed superior technologies on par with those coming from the U.S. Some prime examples of thisinclude the likes of Koichi Tsubota, who developed a superior cutter head, Naotake Hayashi, whodeveloped a world-leading condenser pick-up and condenser “ear speakers,” and Masaru Ibuka, whodeveloped magnetic recording devices for consumer use. Many other world class consumer devices werelater conceived of in Japan, including noteworthy developments with respect to the introduction ofpractical digital recording applications in the 1970s and the development and market launch of compact
disc technology 10 years later. Meanwhile, some have asserted that digital technology is unlikely tosurpass levels achieved using analog means in areas with a close connection to the arts. Going forward, it
is hoped that audio engineers from Japan and other countries will mobilize their collective talents andknowledge in order to overcome such hurdles.

■ Profile
Takeaki Anazawa
Chief Researcher, Center of the History of JapaneseIndustrial Technology, National Museum of Natureand Science
March 1967

Graduated from Waseda University’s
Faculty of Science and Engineering
March 1969 Completed a master's degree inacoustics at Waseda University’s
Graduate School of Science andEngineering
April 1970
Entered Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.
and joined the Recording Department,
where he was involved in music
content
digitization
andthedevelopment and production of
4-channel audio and karaoke.
April 1972
Commercialized a digital PCM audio
recording device.
1974–1985
Engaged in digital audio recording andproduction of classical music, etc., in
Europe and the U.S.
March 1992 Awarded the AES Silver Medal for
Outstanding Achievements in Digital
Audio Technology
June 1995
Assumed the position of board memberof Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.
October 2001 Retired and assumed the position ofboard member of Nippon Columbia
Co., Ltd. and Denon, Ltd.
March 2002 Retired as COO of both companies

2

May 2002

Appointed President of DRM &Solutions Inc.
March 2009 Retired as President of DRM &Solutions Inc.
April 2013
Appointed Chief Researcher at theCenter of the History of JapaneseIndustrial
Technology,
National
Museum of Nature and Science
Director of the Japan Audio Society
Fellow of the AES (Audio Engineering Society)
Member of the Acoustical Society of Japan■Contents
1
2
3
4
5

Introduction ..................................................3
The Birth and Rise of the Phonograph ..........4
The Birth of Acoustic (Mechanical) Disk
Recording and Playback ...............................6
The Advent of Electrical Recording ...........11
The Shift to Longer-Playing and Stereo Disk

Records .......................................................22
Changes and Shipment Trends in the Record
Industry and Record Player Industry ..........63
Audio
Record-Related Standards/Codes.....68
7
8 Methods of Identification and Protection for
Recorded Materials .....................................70
9 Current State of Reference Materials ..........74
10 Epilogue ......................................................77
6

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

1 Introduction
Acoustics is a branch of the naturalsciences that has been studied since the timeof the ancient Egyptians and Greeks and is
not merely concerned with making andtesting physical and mathematical theories,
but also the designing of churches, temples,and musical instruments. When thephonograph record was invented in the latter
half of the nineteenth century, and freed fromthe limitations of hard classical craftsmanshipin the twentieth, it gave a powerful impetus to
the yet-unanticipated content industry, andheralded a time of growth and prosperity forthe same.
The content industry is tied into a wide
range of technologies and disciplines, such asmechanicalengineering,
electricalengineering, acoustics, and chemistry.
Acoustics, which underlies the content
industryitself,isafundamental
interdisciplinary study that lies on theboundary of physics and engineering. This,accordingly, not only includes engineering,but many other fields besides. A notablecharacteristic of this industry is the fact that it
encompasses not only technology that falls
within the domain of engineered machinery,
but also art outside of the domain ofengineering.
The history of the technical innovation
surrounding phonograph records is actually
full of great artists. SP (standard play) records
appeared during the peak of the career of thefamous Italian tenor Enrico Caruso, enabling
people to enjoy his voice through SP records
and record players, and the marches
composed by John Philip Sousa that Edison
loved gave enjoyment to Americans throughrecords and broadcasts. SP records havecaptured the renowned performances of the
Spanish artist Pablo Casals, cellist, opponentof fascism, and artist of the same caliber as
Picasso; and they have also captured the
profound inner world of Albert Schweitzer,
the organist, philosopher, and researcher ofJohann Sebastian Bach.
The era of LP (long play) and stereo LP
records saw the first Japanese LP records (see5.5.5), which captured the performances ofBruno Walter and other musicians who
escaped the oppression of the Third Reich.
The recordings of famous musicians who fled
to Western Europe from Hungary in theupheaval after WWII cannot be overlooked
either. Péter Bartók, son of the well-known
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók, became asuccessful recording and sound engineer in
New York, and made a recording of thecelebrated cellist János Starker (also from
Hungary) playing Kodály’s sonata for solocello – which was said to have the sound of“flying rosin” – and which eclipsed all
previous records to became the most famous
LP record of its time. Fritz Reiner, who was a
conductor for the first Japanese stereo LP
records, was also Hungarian. EP (extendedplay) records are relevant to iconic singers
like Hibari Misora, Elvis Presley, and theBeatles. Japan’s PCM (Pulse CodeModulation) digital audio recording efforts
propelled Maria João Pires, a talented but
obscure Portuguese pianist, into the spotlightwith Mozart’s complete piano sonatas. Alsoworld-renowned were the complete collectionof Beethoven’s string quartets played by the
Smetana Quartet (who were the pride ofCzechoslovakia), and Mahler’s collected
symphonies conducted by Eliahu Inbal.
Whenever successful records have seentechnical improvement, there have always
been first-class artists supporting them.
The history of phonograph records has
seen the development of technologies such asrecording and playback media manufacturing
technology,
content
data
recordingtechnology, long-term storage technology,
mass-production technology, distribution
systems, and copyright protection technology.
This expertise and these accomplishments
will undoubtedly continue to be applied to themass duplication-free distribution of digitalcontent in the new fully-networked society.

32 The Birth and Rise of the Phonograph
In 1877, 137 years ago, Thomas Edison
invented the phonograph record. Some of thechanges surrounding them that have
happened since that time are shown in Fig.
2.1, such as recording media, recording
techniques and other methods of production,
the diameters of disk records, their rotational
speed, groove type, base material, playback
time, frequency response and dynamic range.
Also included in Fig. 2.1 along with SPrecords, LP records, EP records and CDs arephonograph cylinders, the Filmon Sound Belt,
which was invented in Japan in the 1930s andwhich boasted over 30 minutes of recording
and playback, compact cassettes, whichbecame established as a medium for audio in
their own right, and MDs, SACDs, DVDs, etc.
The bottom row shows changes in broadcast
technology, as well as the devices used torecord programs, such as disk recorders,prototype PCM digital recorders, and MH
microphones, all of which will be examinedin this paper.
As can be seen below, disk records haveundergone
drastic
changesevery
quarter-century. Their history now spans 137
years, from the era of mechanically-recorded
cylinders and SP records beginning in the latenineteenth century, through the era ofelectrically-recorded SP records, and the eraof LP records and 45-RPM 17-cm (7-inch)
EP records, to the era of 12-cm and 8-cm
CDs.
First came the early days of records,
when cylinder and disk-type records
competed for dominance, then came the eraof 78-rpm mechanically-recorded disk
records that lasted for a quarter century until
the end of WWI. During the next
quarter-century period from the beginning of
the Great Depression to the end of WWII,
electrical recording and transmission systems
were developed for broadcasting, and thesedevelopments were also applied to records,
leading them in to the era of electrical
recording. This era saw the introduction of
disk recorders into broadcasting stations as
recording machines for use in the production

4of radio programs. Attempts were made toperfect stereophonic records, and records
with increased recording and playback time
were also attempted. In the 1950s, after mono
LP records had run their course, the real eraof LP, EP, and stereo records began. The late1960s were the golden age of stereo LP
records, but technology was already being
developed that would underpin the next
generation of records, and recording sites
began to use digital PCM recording when it
was practically implemented for the first timein 1972.
More than 400 digitally-recorded albums
were made during the next ten years, and thefirst digitally-recorded music recordings
reached homes in 1982 in the form of CDs, aquarter-century after the era of stereo LPs had
begun in earnest.
Though Japan pioneered some of the
popular technologies shown in Fig. 2.1, there
were some, such as the Filmon Sound Belt
and the CD-4 (a 4-channel record), that failed
to gain popularity. Much of early Japaneserecording technology was an imitation offoreign technology developed by AT&T Bell
Laboratories and other companies. Some
Japanese technologies of particular note arepressure microphones (see 5.1.1) and CDs,
which were jointly developed by Japaneseand European companies, and PCM/digitalrecording machines/editing machines/mixing
consoles (see 5.1.3 and 5.1.4), all of whichbecame successful on an international scale
after they were developed with the active
support of musicians and others in the musicbusiness.
It is impossible to mention CDs without
mentioning the fact that although more than
30 years have passed since their introduction,
the quarter-century cycle of technicalinnovation in records has not continued,
raising ever-increasing concerns about thelack of new developments.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

1888 –
1897 – SP
Cylinders
Mechanical Recording
Dawn of
Approx. 25 years
the EraRecording
Direct Recording
RecordingMethodDiameterRotational
Speed
GrooveDisk
Material
RecordingTime

1924 –SP
Electrical Recording
Approx. 25 years

Microphone recording (Introduction of velocity microphones(ribbon, etc.) and condenser microphones, etc.)

Magnetic
Recording (Stereo)

Direct Recording (Mono)

33 1/3 rpm, 45 rpm

78 rpmStandard Groove
EboniteMono 1958 – LP, EP Stereo
Transition
Approx. 25 years
PeriodMicro Groove

Shellac

PVC
Approx. 30 mins/
Approx. 5 mins.

Approx. 2 Approx. 5
mins.
mins.

1982 – CD (Compact Disk)

30 years +Introduction of pressure
microphones
PCM/Digital recorders/editingmachines/mixing consoles

500–200 rpm (l.2–1.4 m/s)
Pit Recording
Polycarbonate
Approx. 74 mins./
Approx. 20 mins.

Band
Dynamic
Range≥ 20 dB

Just under 30 dB

Just under 60 dB

97.8dB (16-bit theoretical)

Main recording media other than the SPs, LPs, EPs and CDs mentioned above.
Filmon Sound
Cylinder1966 Compact Cassette
Belt
Underlined items indicate thosewhere Japan has made a major
contribution.

1952 Stereo broadcasts 1977 Broadcasts of digitally recorded programs
1963 FM stereo broadcasts
1990 PCM music broadcasts

Broadcast1925 Radio broadcasts

Program
Production

Late 1930s – disk recorder, from around 1950s – magnetic recorder, 1967 prototype PCM/digital recorders
Carbon microphone, Fitz microphone, MH microphone, condenser microphone

Fig. 2.1. Changes over the 137 year history of disk records

Although early records were invented anddeveloped with the aim of making acoustic
equipment that could record and reproduce
sound on the same machine, with the
diffusion of records via the new music
distribution business, they came to be widelyused in the early twentieth century as a meansof distributing audio content.
The history of this content distribution
medium has been the history of man’s efforts
to realize the efficient reproduction of highquality recordings, the history of acoustic
improvements in playback quality, and thehistory of the trend toward increased
playback times and three-dimensional(stereo) sound reproduction.
The first records faced difficulties due topirated copies being made, as high-quality
copies could be efficiently and easily
duplicated. Piracy began quite early in Japan,
where in 1912, in the last days of the Meiji
period, pirated records were made and soldby buying and electroplating records to makestampers.
The twentieth century could be called the“century of recording” for the remarkable
growth of its record industry, but it was also a
century full of the fight against piracy.
Additionally, it was a century full of want forthe development of technology to prevent

large-scale illegal distribution such as record
piracy and overpressing, where extra records
would be produced without permission. This
paper will continue to report on thesystematization of record technology, which
underwent a revolution every quarter-century.
Bibliography[1] Fifty Years of Audio History, Japan Audio
Society, 1; The curtain rises on audio, 2;
Toward the era of electrical gramophones,
4; The state of audio in the ’30s
(December 1986)[2] The History of Phonographs and Records
by Kei Ikeda, Recording Industry
Association of Japan (October 1959)

5

3 The Birth of Acoustic (Mechanical) Disk
Recording and Playback
3.1 Competition Between Disk andCylinder Records
In the U.S. on December 6, 1877,
Thomas Edison invented the cylinder
phonograph, the first talking machine that
could record and reproduce sound.
This experiment in recording used thenursery rhyme “Mary had a little lamb,”
recited by Edison himself. The originalrecording has unfortunately been lost, butanother recording of Edison reciting “Maryhad a little lamb” from the 10th anniversary
event of the phonograph has survived, and isavailable for people to listen to (Japan Audio
Society 60th anniversary commemorativeCD). This phonograph recorded andreproduced sound by pressing a needle
attached to a diaphragm from a telephonetransmitter onto a sheet of tin foil that was
wrapped around a helically-grooved metal
cylinder, with the initial intent of recording
and reproducing sound in a self-containedunit.
In 1888, prompted by the increasing needfor pre-recorded cylinder records forreproducing music, Edison released an
improved version that recorded onto wax
cylinders, and the Columbia PhonographCompany also began selling molded cylinder
records in the following year. Edison
continued to make improvements, releasing
the Triumph Model A for household use in1896 and the Standard Model B wax cylinder
phonograph in 1901. Figure 3.1 shows a wax
cylinder phonograph.

Fig. 3.1 Edison Standard Model B wax
cylinder phonograph. Made in the U.S.A. in1901 (Kanazawa Phonograph Museum).
On September 26, 1887, 10 years after
Edison invented the phonograph, Emile
Berliner invented the gramophone, which was
first talking machine to use flat disks. He
sang the children’s song “Twinkle, twinkle,
little star” for its first recording test. One may
still listen to this recording (Japan Audio
Society 60th anniversary commemorativeCD).
Figure 3.2 shows cylinder and disk
records.

Fig. 3.2 Cylinder and disk records (SP type).
The gramophone recorded sound waves
as lateral vibrations on wax-coated zinc disks,
which were then etched with acid to makegrooves. In this method, the master disk waselectroplated to make stampers, which were

6

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchthen used to press appropriate materials, andit had the advantage of being able to produce
large quantities of records. However, thegrooves of disk records (which were usually
laterally recorded) had a lower amplitude
than those of cylinder records (which wereusually vertically recorded), the etched soundgrooves had a rougher surface, andadditionally, the ebonite or vulcanized rubber
substrate made a very disagreeable scratching
noise, so disk records did not equal cylinder
records in audio quality until the first half ofthe 1890s.
In 1897, Berliner improved the methods
and material used to cut the wax master disks
in order to obtain better sound quality.
The competition between cylinders anddisks intensified as they entered the twentiethcentury. In 1902, the Columbia Gramophone
Company (previously known as the Columbia
Phonograph Company), which had been
producing wax cylinder phonographs, beganselling disk records, and in France in 1907,
Pathé Records, which had been selling
cylinders, began selling disk records
employing the same vertically-cut recording
method as cylinders.
In 1912, Edison released the “Diamond
Disc” record, a high quality vertically-cut
disk record that could record verticalhigh-amplitude signals by virtue of its
thickness.
Figure 3.3 shows a Diamond Disc record.

almost military supplies, the ease with which
disk records were mass produced indicatedthe eventual triumph of disk records overcylinders.
Over in Japan, Edison wax cylinder
phonographs were reportedly being imported
and sold by Waichi Araki (owner of Araki
Shoten) in Osaka in 1896.
Various accounts exist of Japan’s firstdisk recordings, but it is generally acceptedthat Japanese music began to be recorded
after recording equipment was transported by
the Gramophone Company in England to
Japan in 1901 so that they could record
Japanese music. They worked with A.
Cameron & Co in Kobe City and recorded
170 7-inch records and 110 10-inch records
over the period of a month at the Hotel
Metropole in Tsukiji, Tokyo. Recordings
were made of gagaku, tokiwazu, kiyomoto,nagauta, and other forms of traditional
Japanese music. The master disks were taken
to England, where they were used to produce
records that were then exported back to Japan.
One such record is shown in Fig. 3.4.

Fig. 3.4 The first disk record recorded inJapan (Kanazawa Phonograph Museum).

Fig. 3.3 Edison’s Diamond Disc record(Kanazawa Phonograph Museum)
Even Edison began to sell disk records,
and when Decca portable gramophones cameto be widely used by British soldiers after
WWI broke out in 1914 to help them to pass
the time at the bogged down front, making
portable gramophones and disk records

Various American and European
companies went to Japan to make recordingsin the wake of the Gramophone Company in1901. Columbia Phonograph recorded 900
single-sided disks with performances by themaster musicians of the Meiji period in Japan
during 1905 and 1906. Wega from Germany
also made recordings in Japan in 1906,
followed by the Victor Talking MachineCompany in the U.S. in 1907. Wega is said tohave produced over 3,000 SP records.

7

3.2 Japan’s First Gramophones and
Disk Records
Japan’s first gramophones and disk
records appeared in less than a decade after
the turn of the twentieth century. The
Japan-American Phonograph Manufacturing
Company pressed the first Japanese-madedisk records (10-inch single-sided records) in
1909, which were then sold through Nippon
Chikuonki Shokai.
Figure 3.5 shows a single-sided SP
record of the nagauta “Kuramayama”
performed by Ijuro Yoshimura, which is atypical example of a Japanese-made record
sold by Nippon Chikuonki Shokai at the endof the Meiji period (1912) under various
labels such as Symphony and Nipponophone.
At the end of the Meiji period, shortly
after Japanese-made disk records became

available for sale, pirated records containing
the same song as the ordinary record shownin Fig. 3.5 appeared on the market for lower
prices. Figure 3.6 shows two such records.
It could be argued that these SP records
are not pirate copies as they were not illegal
under contemporary legislation, but the fact
remains that the performers were never paid.
This kind of piracy remained rampant untillaws were enacted during the Taisho (1912–1926) period. Until then, expensive records
that paid royalties to performers weretargeted. Pirates would buy two single-sided
records containing hit songs, then electroplatethem to make molds, manufacture copies,
glue on attractive authentic-looking labels,
and sell them as double-sided records without
paying any royalties.

Fig. 3.5 An SP disk record of the nagauta “Kuramayama” performed by Ijuro Yoshimura(Kanazawa Phonograph Museum).

Fig. 3.6 Am example of a pirated record from the Taisho period (a pirated version of the record
shown in Fig. 3.5) (Kanazawa Phonograph Museum).
In 1910, shortly after disk records
became available [in Japan], Japan
Phonograph Trading (previously named The
Japan-American Phonograph ManufacturingCo., Ltd., now Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)8

released the Nipponophone Model 25(numbered after the retail price of 25 yen),
the Nipponophone Model 32 han (32.5 yen),
the Nipponophone Model 35 (35 yen), andthe Nipponophone Model 50 (50 yen), which

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchwere the first record players to be made inJapan. Although they were called various
names at the time, they eventually came to be
known as chiku’on-ki (which translates as“sound-storing machines”).

morning glory-shaped horn. (Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum)The exterior is shown in Fig. 3.9.

Fig. 3.9 A 1911 Eufon record player withinternal horn as loved by author Kenji
Miyazawa. The horn in located internally inthe right front of the unit. (Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum)Fig. 3.7 The first record players to be made inJapan. The Nipponophone Model 35 withmorning glory-shaped horn. (Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum)
A Nipponophone Model 35 and Model
50 are shown in Fig. 3.7 and Fig. 3.8
respectively.
In 1911, Nippon Chikuonki Shokai
released two models of record player that had
an internal horn instead of a morning
glory-shaped external horn. One of these, theEufon, is known to have been favored by the
famous author Kenji Miyazawa.

Fig. 3.8 The first record players to be made inJapan. The Nipponophone Model 50 with

3.3 TheBirthof
Legendary
Record-Playing Masterpieces

In the early twentieth century, cylinderand disk record players had exposedmechanisms and large horns that were
frowned upon by housewives. Then in the
U.S. in 1906, the Victor Talking MachineCompany released the Victrola, whichfeatured an internal horn concealed inside awooden cabinet. This improvement inexternal appearance was accompanied by the
introduction of acoustic improvements suchas horns with longer equivalent lengths andthe adoption of duralumin diaphragms insoundboxes (the section of a record playerthat turns vibrations from the needle intosound). These acoustic improvements
continued into the late 1920s, and led to theadvent of magnificent machines that were
known as “grand gramophones” such as the
HMV Model 194 (England, 1927–1930) andthe Orthophonic Victrola Credenza (USA,
1925–1928), and other outstanding tabletop
record players, portable record players, andrecord players with horns.
Technical masterpieces were made thatwere said to cost as much as a house. One
such machine, the Victrola Credenza, isshown in Fig. 3.10.

9

Bibliography[1] The History of Cylinder and Disk Record
Players, Kei Ikeda, published by theMusic Disc Association of Japan, October
1934.
[2] The Gift of Nostalgic Sound, published by
Kanazawa Phonograph Museum.
[3] Japan Audio Society 60th anniversarycommemorative CD Tracing the Path of
Audio Century using Sound and guide.
（JAS Journal 2013 Vol.53 No.2）

Fig. 3.10 The famous Victrola Credenza
VV8-30. Made in the U.S. during 1926 and1927. (Kanazawa Phonograph Museum)10

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March4 The Advent of Electrical Recording
4.1 The Age of Disk Records and their
Rivalry with RadioThe early 1920s rode on a wave ofprosperity following the end of World War I,
and although the American record industry
reached a peak in 1921, production volumes
gradually began to decline. This was causedby the commencement of regular radio
broadcasts, which began to captivate theaverage consumer.
Until 1924, all records had been recorded
acoustically (and without electricity) since theinvention of the phonograph in 1877. Artists
performed in front of horns, setting thediaphragms at the end of the horns vibrating,which caused a cutting stylus to cut a wax
disk. With this method of recording, theoverall reproducible frequency range waslimited to about 300–1,500 Hz, as
lower-pitched sounds were limited by thecutoff frequency of the horn andhigher-pitched sounds were limited by theresonant frequency of the diaphragm. Most
records from this era are voice recordings,
perhaps because this frequency bandcorresponds with the spectrum of the humanvoice, or because it was easy to pick up vocal
music. Radio, on the other hand, had theadvantage of high-quality sound, and was free
to boot. In May 1924, H. C. Harrison, who
was an engineer for AT&T’s primary supplier,the Western Electric Company, filed a patentfor electrical recording. This widened the
reproducible frequency range to 100–5,000
Hz, and also enabled the use of multiple
microphones.

4.2 The Electric Gramophone Arrives
The range of reproducible frequencies
widened with electrical recording, but
electrical playback was desired, because
electrically-recorded records had an unusual
sound quality that emphasized scraping
sounds when they were played back using
soundboxes. Bell Laboratories researchedelectrical sound reproduction at the same timethey were researching electrical recording.
The first electric gramophone went on sale in
1926, and although this improved declining
sales for a while, sales plummeted with theWall Street crash in the fall of 1929. Then, to
add insult to injury, the advent of talkies
around 1930 caused sales to plummet evenfurther. Figure 4.1 shows a Victrola RE-45,
an early electric gramophone. This electric
gramophone featured electrical soundreproduction and a radio receiver.

Fig. 4.1 Victrola RE-45 gramophone withintegrated radio. This model was imported
and sold by RCA from November 1929 for¥1,075. (Kanazawa Phonograph Museum)

4.3 BroadcastingStations
Electric Disk Recorders

Adopt

Edison had envisioned a self-containedmachine to record and reproduce sound when
he invented the phonograph, but as disk
records became commonplace, he changed
his standpoint and began developing
technologies to mass-produce records forcontent distribution.
Broadcasters, who do not needmass-production technology, rapidly adopted
machines that recorded and played back disks
until magnetic disk recorders were introduced.
The history of disk recorders in Japan up tothat point is described in detail in The Story of
Disk Recorders by Yoshiharu Abe [3].
In 1936, German broadcasting stations
used many disk recorders made by
Telefunken Gesellschaft für drahtlose

11

12

Fig. 4.2 Tsubota’s general-purpose cutter
head.
The characteristic of the cutter head isshown in Fig. 4.3.

Relative Output Level(dB)

Telegraphie mbH in Germany in broadcasting
events at the Berlin Olympics. Thisencouraged NHK to import the samemachines in preparation for the 1940 Tokyo
Olympics, but equipment gradually became
more difficult to import, prompting thedomestication of disk recorders. At the time,
although there were steel tape and steel wire
recorders, as well as optical sound-on-filmrecorders, only with disk recorders was it
possible to play back sound onsite
immediately after recording it, and soundquality was also of an acceptable level. Disk
recorders were the mainstay of thebroadcasting industry until they weredisplaced by magnetic tape recorders,beginning in Germany in 1942, then in the
U.S. in 1947, and later in Japan about 1950.
In 1934, Koichi Tsubota (formerly amanaging director of Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.) established the Nippon Denki Onkyo
Research Institute and began researching anddeveloping electroacoustic devices. After five
years of work, he completed a compact
record cutter head that was compatible withGerman Telefunken recorders. The prototype
cutter heads were installed on Telefunken
disk recorders and tested repeatedly at NHK,and finally in 1938 a disk recorder wascompleted that surpassed the performance of
the Telefunken machines. Then, Katsuma
Tani (who later founded TEAC and acted as arepresentative director) became involved inefforts to improve its recording characteristic,
and after improving both recording and noisecharacteristics, and reducing manufacturingcosts, the first improved unit was completed
in September 1939. This disk recorder was
equipped with Tsubota’s cutter head. Thiscutter head was later improved, and although
it was small and lightweight for ageneral-purpose head, its frequency response
was second to none at the time. Figure 4.2
shows this cutter head.

Frequency (Hz)Fig. 4.3 General-purpose cutter headcharacteristic.
A. Nippon Denki Onkyo Research Institutecutter head characteristic.
B: Western Electric cutter head characteristic.
Tsubota’s cutter head (Fig. 4.3 A) is
comparable with the Western Electric cutter
head, which was considered to be the best
cutter head of its time (Fig. 4.3 B). As Fig.
4.3 shows, Tsubota’s cutter head had a lighter
oscillatory system, which raised its upper
frequency limit from 5 kHz to 12 kHz – adramatic increase. This high-performancecutter head was used to cut the Filmon Sound
Belt (described below) and records containing
the imperial edict at the end of the World WarII.
The disks for this disk recorder used along-lasting flammable cellulose withexcellent recording characteristics, and weredeveloped with the experienced assistance of
Yutaka Tate (former chief engineer of JVC).
On June 4, 1938, the Tokyo Nichi Nichi
Shimbun (Tokyo Daily News) published anarticle covering Tsubota and Take’s invention,
titled “A Triumph for Recorded Broadcasts –Outstanding Japanese Invention – Completed
by Two Students,” reporting that the

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchbroadcasting stations who were panicking
over the lack or foreign-made disk recorderwere now set at ease. Unfortunately, the 1940
Tokyo Olympic Games were canceled due tothe war.
4.3.1 The First Japanese Disk Recorders
The first Japanese disk recorder (theDenon TPR-14-C) is shown in Fig. 4.4, andits mechanism is shown in Fig. 4.5.

Fig. 4.4 Japan’s first disk recorder, the Denon
TPR-14-C.

Fig. 4.5 Denon TPR-14-C disk recordermechanism.
Although the disk recorder shown in Fig.
4.4 was described as “portable,” the 94 kg ofrecording and playback equipment was
combined with over 40 kg of recording
amplifiers, playback amplifiers, speakers andpower supplies, reaching a massive 135 kg.
The recording and playback mechanism
shown in Fig. 4.5 had a 34-cm turntable
driven by a 78 rpm low-speed synchronous
motor, and could record 25-cm disks with 3
minutes of audio, but could alternate between
two recording/playback mechanisms if longer
recording was needed. Unlike analog records,
the groove spiraled from the center to theoutside edge, so that the swarf would notentangle the cutter head. A feed screw moved

the cutter head like an engineering lathe to
cut 90 grooves per inch. The cutter head used
oil damping as an efficient mechanical filter,
enabling it to cut the standard reference tone
(1 kHz, 75 mm/sec) with 0.5 W.
Constant-amplitude recording was used for
frequencies
under
800
Hz,
and
constant-velocity recording was used for
frequencies over 800 Hz. The recording
frequency characteristic was such that it
could capture frequencies from 50 Hz to over
10,000 Hz. This meant that it had an
extremely wide-band recording characteristic
for its time. The steel stylus had very highmechanical impedance, enabling the recorder
to cut wax or acetate disks without therecording characteristic changing due to thedifference in hardness.
Records for this machine were madefrom high-purity aluminum disks with adiameter of 25 cm and a thickness of 1 mm,
which were coated with a 0.3 mm-thick layerof nitrocellulose lacquer on both sites. Such
records are usually called acetate disks orlacquer disks. Acetate disks could reportedly
be played back a few dozen times if lighttracking force was used; noise increased aswear accumulated, and after about 30 plays
they had the same level of noise as a new(shellac) SP record.
Further improvements were made to thefirst Japanese disk recorder, resulting in a
succession of models; the DS-15-A stationary
recorder, the DS-14-B (installed at NHK’svarious main broadcasting stations), theDP-16-B (portable), the DP-16-C (stationary),
the C-16-E (cutter), and the slim DP-16-K.
These were used not only for broadcasting
but also by the army and navy for various
military applications.
One can image the difficulties
experienced by the staff who had to carry two
heavy DP-16-K recorders into the imperial
court without attracting the attention of themilitary for the imperial edict on thetermination of the war on August 15, 1945.
These two recorders were used to make tworecords, which were taken to the broadcasting
center in Uchisaiwai-cho (while still avoiding
the scrutiny of the military) where the edict
was broadcast. The same model of disk
recorder and disk record can be viewed at the13NHK Museum of Broadcasting. The
recording and playback machine is shown
along with a microphone in Fig. 4.6, and therecord used for the broadcast is shown in Fig.
4.7.

Fig. 4.6 A recording/playback machine of thesame type as that used in the broadcasting of
the imperial edict on the termination of thewar on August 15, 1945 is shown along witha Tokyo Denki Type A microphone. (NHKMuseum of Broadcasting)

EP master disks at a number of Japaneserecord companies.
One notable disk recorder was a portable
household model (the Denon RC-1), which
was released in 1949. This disk recorder(shown in Fig. 4.8) was the subject of muchdiscussion, but interest waned as cheap
magnetic recorders became widespread, andit disappeared without becoming popular.

Fig. 4.8 The portable Denon RC-1 consumer
model.
The ubiquity or EP and LP records meantthat they were even used in radio programs,
so disk recorders were popular withbroadcasting stations even after the transition
from disk recorders to magnetic recorders
4.3.2

Fig. 4.7 The record used to broadcast theimperial edict on the termination of the war
on August 15, 1945.
Disk recorder continued to be in demand
after the war, with the R-23-A portable disk
recorder being adopted by NHK in 1948. The
development of disk recorders with increased
disk diameter (16 inches for longer
recording/playback time), decreased rate ofrotation and increased groove spacing (pitch)continued, and in 1950 the R-24-B stationary
disk recorder was introduced, followed in1952 by the first (and last) experimental
Japanese LP disk recorder for broadcasting
use was unveiled. Support was added to thisrecorder for variable pitch (adjusting the
spacing between grooves according to asignal) in 1957, and it was used to cut LP and

14

The Downfall of Disk Recorders for
Broadcasting and the Rise of
Record Players
Japanese disk recorders, which did notsee much progress during the war, remainedin the world of 10- or 12-inch, 78-rpm SPrecords until the end of the war whenoccupying forces brought 16-inch, 33
1/3-rpm long playing disks to use in theirbroadcasts. Japanese disk recorder improved
following this development, but the rise ofmagnetic recording was more prominent.
Magnetic recorders using steel wire or steel
tape already existed but were rare. Disk
recorders remained unchallenged untilmagnetic tape recorders were developed by
Masaru Ibuka and others.
Compared with magnetic tape recorders,the disk recorders of that period had theadvantages of being easy to record and playback, and easy to cue, etc., but they were also
extremely sensitive to external vibration,
restricted to certain situations (use on level

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchsurfaces, etc.), not suited to making
multi-channel parallel recordings with,restricted to a certain number of plays,difficult to erase, impossible to re-record, and,above all, heavy and expensive. At the time,
although they were both similar in terms of
size, weight, audio quality and reproducible
frequency range, and play back directly afterrecording was not possible, the extreme
sensitivity of disk recorders to external
vibration during recording and playback, andtheir need for a level surface made them lessconvenient for broadcasters than magnetic
recorders.
Record companies had to isolate theircutting machines (cutting lathes for disk
records) from vibration caused by machinery
such as air-conditioning equipment. They
would also avoid external vibrations byinstalling their cutters on anti-vibration
mounts. Recording would be stopped during
even the smallest of earthquakes.
The susceptibility of disk recorders tovibration was one reason for broadcastingstations to replace them with magnetic
recorders, which they began to do in the
1950s. Broadcasting stations eventuallyceased to install disk recorders, but adoptionof record players proceeded rapidly with the
spread of LP and stereo records and thegrowth of commercial radio broadcasting.
The only exception was the magnetic
disk recorder developed by NHK Science andTechnology Research Laboratories in 1959,
which combined the strengths of disk
recorders and magnetic tape recorders but
was unsuccessful because of shortcomings
such as deteriorating sound quality towards
the center of the disk. Even in this digital age,one cannot say that it is extremely easy tomake recording machines that combine theadvantages of disk recorders and magnetic
recorders by using optical or magnetic disks.
The most important components of a disk
recording and playback machine forbroadcasting use are the turntable, thecartridge, and the pickup on the tonearm, butdevelopment languished in postwar Japan,
and churning out replicas of products fromthe U.S. and other countries became thecornerstone of the postwar Japanese audio
industry. Some turntables developed and soldby Tokyo Television Acoustic Company (asubsidiary of Yamaha Corporation) wereadopted by broadcasting stations (Tokyo
Television Acoustic Company later mergedwith Tokyo Electro Acoustic Company(TEAC). Tonearms were mostly imported
from the U.S. and included models made by
Clarkstan Corporation that were supported onsteel balls, oil-damped tonearms made byGray Manufacturing Company that rested ona single pivot filled with silicone oil (Fig. 4.9,
Fig. 4.10), and tonearms made by Pickeringand Company with articulated cartridge
mounts. Broadcasters used Japanese-madecopies of such tonearms.

Fig. 4.9 Gray tonearm (made by Denon).
Arm

Pivot
Counterweight
Silicone Oil
Turntable

Fig. 4.10 Gray tonearm construction.
Counterweight

Arm securing
screw

Swing hanger

Tracking force
adjustment
Pivot bearing

Fig. 4.11 Pickering tonearm

15

Clarkstan tonearms were eventuallydisplaced by oil-damped tonearms for SP
playback; Pickering tonearms were used for
LP playback. Famous American cartridges,
such as GE variable reluctance (VR)cartridges, Pickering balanced armature (BA)
cartridges and Fairchild moving coil (MC)cartridges, were widely copied or improved.
One such cartridge was the Denon PUC-3,
which had an excellent characteristic but wasso similar to the Fairchild product that somecalled it the mane-child (imitation-child).
Only after this period of copying overseas
products had passed did technology unique toJapan appear.
An outstanding example of thattechnology is the Denon DL-103 moving-coilstereo cartridge (Fig. 4.12 and Fig. 4.13),
which was developed by Takeo Yamamoto(former vice president of Pioneer) together
with Nitadori and others from NHK Scienceand Technology Research Laboratories (who
introduced FM broadcasting in 1965) and
Masuda and others at DENON.

Fig. 4.12 Japanese moving coil type stereo
cartridge (Denon DL-103) used for domestic
broadcasting.
Coil andwinding frame
Double layer
Dampertil
StylusElectrode
MagnetFig. 4.13 Construction of a Denon DL-103
moving coil type stereo cartridge fordomestic broadcasting.
Moving coil cartridges have essentiallythe same construction as high-performancecutter heads, and their moving parts arelighter than those of moving magnet
cartridges, meaning that it is easy to obtain aflat frequency characteristic close to the input
obtained using a cutter head. However, they16

had their disadvantages as well: for example,
their complicated construction (the way thecoils were wound and so on) prevented theirneedles from being changed easily.
Although the DL-103 cartridge was rated
as having sound quality nearly as good as
cutter head input (i.e. the output from themaster tape), users could not replace theneedle. This cartridge was put on the market
for consumer use in 1969, and it is still in
production. Though it has contributed to the
expansion of the Japanese audio industry forhalf a century, its amazing sound quality
continues to captivate audiophiles even today.
4.3.3

A Long-Playing Medium Born inJapan: the Filmon Sound Belt
When records were first beginning to berecognized as a medium for distributing
recorded music and other audio, many of thepeople involved wished to be able to extend
the playback time of SP records somehow. In
1937, the Filmon sound belt was introduced,
invented by Shozo Konishi in response to thisdemand. The Filmon was a long-playing
recording system unique to Japan with an
extraordinarily long playback time of 36
minutes – unheard of in a household record.
Filmon – a contraction of “film” and“phone” – was a system for obtaining longplayback time by attaching multiple grooves
from disk records to an endless tape.
The sound belt was a 13 m long endless loopof celluloid tape 35 mm wide and 0.3 mm
thick, wrapped around 23 times, on whichaudio signals were recorded at a pitch of 80
grooves per inch and a linear velocity of 610
millimeters per second, to provide over 1,000
m of grooves on the tape. It recorded andreproduced audio signals using the same
principles as disk records. This sound belt
had up to 35 minutes of playback time.
Filmon sound belts were manufactured inmuch the same was as disk records, and were
cut with the same small wide-band cutter
head developed by Tsubota for disk records(exterior shown in Fig. 4.2, characteristic
shown in Fig. 4.3). Because the sound belts
were longer with more surface area than disk
records, they needed a collection ofmass-production stages such as electroplatingvats exceeding 3 meters in diameter andNational Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchstages for making and pressing the enormous
masters and attaching the sound belts.
Figure 4.14 shows a Filmon sound belt,
and Fig. 4.15 shows the interior of a large
Filmon sound belt press.

difficult time as Japan teetered on the brink of
WWII.
Figure 4.16 shows the Filmon player(Filmon FA100) than went on sale in 1937.
This Filmon player could also be used to play78 rpm records. It had an electricmotor-driven turntable for disk records on theupper left-hand side, a mechanism for playing
Filmon belts directly beneath it, and a smallhorn on the right, which was driven by asoundbox in the same way as phonographhorns were.

Fig. 4.14 Filmon sound belt, endless film
(13 m long), case and instruction manual.
(Kanazawa Phonograph Museum)Fig. 4.16 Filmon FA100 tabletop
Filmon/record player made by Nippon
Filmon Co., Ltd. In 1937, it had a
13-meter-long film, and a maximum playing
time of 36 minutes. (An identical model is in
the Kanazawa Phonograph Museum)Fig. 4.15 Interior of a large Filmon sound beltpress.
Tens of thousands of Filmon players
were manufactured and sold to spread Japan’s
ambitious and unique long-playing soundrecordingandreproduction
system.
Meanwhile,
musicalcontent(mainly
consisting of rokyoku, nagauta, and kodan
performances by master artists) was being
eagerly recorded in dedicated studios, with
the number of recorded playback titles
reportedly reaching 300. This would haveequated to approximately 2,000 SP record
titles at the time.
One cannot help but admire the passionof Tsubota and the others who worked as acompany to develop a new soundreproduction system and to record titles fortheir new playback medium, all to realize
long-playing records (thought to be only a
dream at the time), and during the extremely

The Filmon was an ambitious, new,uniquely Japanese medium for music. Not
only were recorders and players made for it,
but new content was developed and produced
as well. Although this made the problems thatthe engineers faced all the more difficult, andalthough success was hard to come by, it
ultimately fostered many of the brilliant
engineers that supported the Japanese audio
industry after the war.
Filmon grooves were cut using auniversal cutter head developed by Koichi
Tsubota (shown in Fig. 4.2; characteristic
shown in Fig. 4.3) in a similar way to the disk
recorders for broadcasting that were
described in greater detail in 4.3.
Unfortunately, the Filmon factory wasdemolished in 1940 as the war intensified,
only a few years after it was built, and theFilmon disappeared with it.
Katsuma Tani, who was Koichi
Tsubota’s foremost apprentice, penned a17

moving essay on the Filmon for the JAS
Journal in 1980 titled “Reminiscences of theFilmon.” In it, he wrote: “Though theJapanese audio industry has without a doubt
reached the highest standard in the world,
behind the creation of this environment are
the labors and hardships of those who went
before us. For this, they deserve to be held in
the highest esteem.”
4.3.4

Japanese Audio and Record
Technology Pioneers
Let us now turn our attention to thepioneering engineers who contributed to the
expansion of Japan’s audio and record
industries after the war. It is widely known
that Koichi Tsubota, founder of Denon in
1939, graduated from the same Department ofElectrical Engineering (class of 1933) as
Masaru Ibuka, founder of Tokyo Tsushin
Kogyo(TokyoTelecommunications
Engineering Corporation, later Sony) and
Shigeru Shima, former head of NHK Scienceand Technology Research Laboratories. The
academic support of Takeshi Itow, who was aprofessor at the Faculty of Science andEngineering at their alma mater (Waseda
University) should also not be overlooked.
Ibuka developed a magnetic tape recorder in
1950, and being an engineer with a greatinterest with preschool education, he began
music education projects, etc., for young
children together with his good friend
Soichiro Honda, Gen’ichi Kawakami (former
representative
directorof
YamahaCorporation) and the composer Kuranosuke
Hamaguchi. Ibuka was named a Person ofCultural Merit in 1989, and in 1992 hebecame the first industrialist to be awarded
the Order of Culture. The first Japanese taperecorder (the Sony G Type), which wasdeveloped
by
Ibuka
at
Tokyo
Telecommunications
Engineering
Corporation (now Sony), is shown in Fig.
4.17.

18

Fig. 4.17 The Sony G Type tape recorder,
Japan’s first magnetic recorder – developedby Masaru Ibuka. (NHK Museum of
Broadcasting)
One of the first buyers of this taperecorder was Toriro Miki, the father ofbroadcast writing in Japan, who was born ahundred years ago in 2014. Miki studied theviolin under Anna Ono and the piano under
Sealey Watanabe while studying at theFaculty of Law of Tokyo Imperial University(now known as the University of Tokyo).
After graduating, he learned composition
from Saburo Moroi, who was the father ofcomposition in Japan. Miki began working in
the radio industry in 1946, and took charge of
the Jodan Ongaku (Joke Music) show in 1947
for the Nichiyo Gorakuban (Sunday
entertainment program), which was said tohave emptied the streets when it was being
broadcast. He is widely known in Japan as the
producer of that famous radio show, full of
dry humor, in which he viciously satirizedsociety, which even Shigeru Yoshida (thenthe Prime Minister of Japan) found to begreatly amusing. This show used Miki’s own
personal tape recorders during production andrecording, and thanks to this, we are still able
to listen to his radio programs.
Naotake Hayashi, of the same generationas Tsubota, Ibuka, and Shima, who alsostudied at the University of Tokyo, should
also not be overlooked. Hayashi, aninnovative and persistent engineer who
developed
electroacoustic
transducers,
founded Showa Ko’on Kogyo Kabushiki
Kaisha (Showa Photo-Acoustic Industries
KK.) in 1938, and then went on to release acondenser microphone under the STAX brandin 1950. In 1952 he displayed the CP-20
condenser pickup system at the first Japanese
Audio Fair, after which he then worked to

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchdevelop electrostatic headphones andspeakers, commercializing the world’s firstelectrostatic headphones in 1960. A pair isshown in Fig. 4.18.

Fig. 4.18 STAX SR-1 electrostatic ear
speakers (still in normal working order, but
the frail delicate ear pads have been
replaced).
In 1963, Showa Ko’on Kogyo Kabushiki
Kaisha was renamed STAX Industries Ltd.
STAX headphones were called “ear speakers,”
and even now, over 50 year later, thesuccessors of the original SR-1 remain
unassailable as some of the highest-quality
headphones on the market. While these ear
speakers have the advantage of having light
diaphragms, they also require special
amplifiers, which made them expensive andlimited their popularity.
Tsubota, who developed the record cutter
head that compared with American models,
was a violinist and once was theconcertmaster for his school orchestra,
received the Medal of Honor with Purple
Ribbon for “Achievements in contributing to
the development of disk recording andreproduction technology” in 1967.
Takeshi Itow was a pupil of Saburo
Moroi, father of Japanese composition (andteacher of Toriro Miki), and in addition tocomposing, wrote the two-volume classic
Onkyo
KogakuGenron(Acoustic
Engineering Theory) (Corona Publishing Co.,
Ltd.). Ibuka, Ito and literary critic Kenzo
Nakajima were deeply involved inestablishing the Japan Audio Society, which
recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. They
were also key members of the Japan sectionof the US-based Audio Engineering Society(AES) at the time of its establishment. Itoworked together with the Acoustical Societyof Japan and the Institute of Electronics andCommunication Engineers to encourageapprentices to participate in research
activities at academic societies such as theElectro-Acoustic Research Society, freely
providing guidance and support.
Tsubota’s
pupilsincludedtheaforementioned Katsuma Tani (founder ofTEAC), and also Yasunori Mochida (former
senior managing director of Nippon Gakki
Co., Ltd, now Yamaha), Yoshiharu Abe(former director of TEAC), and many othertalented individuals in the Japanese audio
industry who appeared after the war. Takeo
Yamamoto (former vice president of Pioneer
Corporation), who developed cartridges at
NHK Science and Technology ResearchLaboratories (STRL) for use in broadcasting,went to work at Pioneer where he played acentral role in developing LaserDiscs. Heitaro
Nakajima (former president of AIWA), wholater supervised the CD development programat Sony, was Yamamoto’s boss at NHK
STRL.
Although the contributions of AT&T
Bell Laboratories and other Americancompanies to the popularization of audio
have been significant (as this paper shows),
the contributions of NTT Telecommunication
Laboratories (called “Japan’s Bell Labs” bysome) should not be forgotten. One suchcontribution was from Tanetoshi Miura,
former president of the Acoustical Society ofJapan.
After
working
at
NTT
Telecommunication Laboratories, Miura went
to the Hitachi Central Research Laboratory,
and then on to Tokyo Denki University where
he conducted comprehensive research into
orthostereophonic sound. In the late 1960s,
Miura called attention to matters such as
dummy head pickup and surround stereo, theimportance of measuring head-relatedtransfer function in Japanese people and the
problem of unnatural lateralization in
headphones, and the importance of digitalrecording as a future technology.
In 1943, the Recording Industry
Association of Japan was established.
Shozaburo Wada (former Imperial Japanese
Navy Commander and former director ofKing Record Co., Ltd.) provided technical19

support for the association from the
beginning, and was later made an advisor.
Supportingthe
RecordingIndustry
Association along with Wada were Kenjiro
Takayanagi (former vice president of Victor
Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC)), a man
known as the father of TV in Japan, Toshiya
Inoue (former executive managing director of
JVC), the aforementioned Koichi Tsubota(founder of Denon), Takeo Shiga (former
managing director of Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.) (who devised methods for cutting
piezoelectric elements and invented the “cigar
cartridge” which could produce a stereo
signal from a pair of piezoelectric elements),
and other distinguished Japanese engineers.
Kenjiro Takayanagi, who dreamed ofmusen-enshi (television), became an assistantprofessor at Hamamatsu Industrial HighSchool (now the Faculty of Engineering at
Shizuoka University) in 1924. He immersed
himself in his beloved television development
and in 1926 successfully scanned an image of
the Japanese character “イ” with a Nipkow
disk, transmitted it, and received it using acathode ray tube. Figure 4.19 shows areconstruction of the “イ” character on adisplay at the NHK Museum of Broadcasting.

Fig. 4.19 Kenjiro Takayanagi’s imagetransmission experiment. (NHK Museum of
Broadcasting)In 1937, Takayanagi moved to NHK
STRL, where he perfected a TV that could
display 441 scan lines at 30 frames per
second, and in 1939 he successfully
performed
Japan’s
firstexperimental
television
broadcast.
He
continued
development with the aim of broadcasting the1940 Tokyo Olympic Games, but they werecanceled. After World War II, he moved to20

Victor Company of Japan Co., Ltd. (now JVC
Kenwood Corporation), where he worked to
improve televisions and train technicians. He
was named a Person of Cultural Merit in1980, and was awarded the Order of Culture
in 1981.
Kenjiro Takayanagi taught Toshiya
Inoue, who oversaw the development ofaudio technology. In 1958, Japan’s first 45/45
stereorecords
were
unveiledanddemonstrated at Victor Studio in Tsukiji,Tokyo, and they provided a cheerful topic ofconversation for the Japanese people as they
recovered from the war. This demonstration
is said to have triggered the rapid expansionof the Japanese audio industry. Japan’s firststereo LP (Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.
1, conducted by Fritz Reiner and featuring
Emil Gilels on the piano with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra) (Victor Company ofJapan SLS-2001) was released in August of
the same year. In November, JVC’s second
stereo LP and Nippon Columbia’s first werereleased.
Toshiya Inoue’s efforts were spectacular.
He was involved in the development of VHS,which took the world by storm with VCRs
and video cassettes; VHD disks, which
competed with LaserDiscs; and the CD-4,
which was a discrete 4-channel record. In
1979 he supervised the editing of the famous
Japanese book
Records and Record
Players.
Shiga Takeo, who received an AES
Silver Medal Award for his achievements(including the development of the “cigar
cartridge”) (an award later awarded to
Toshiya Inoue as well), was a pupil of Hideo
Itokawa (formerly of Systems ResearchInstitute), a man known as the father ofJapanese space and rocket development,
when the latter was conducting research into
acoustics. Another pupil of Itokawa at thesame time was Masahiko Morizono (former
vice president of Sony). Itokawa graduatedfrom the Department of Aeronautics at Tokyo
Imperial University’s Faculty of Engineeringin 1935 and joined Nakajima Aircraft
Company, where he worked to design fighter
aircraft such as the Hayabusa. In 1941, hebecame an assistant professor at Tokyo
Imperial University’s Second Faculty of

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchEngineering in Chiba City, where theinfluence of the military was relatively
weaker. In 1949, he obtained a degree for histhesis Research concerning Methods of
Measuring Minute Displacements due to
Acoustic Impedance. In 1954, Itokawa
formed the Avionics and Supersonic
Aerodynamics research group at the Instituteof Industrial Science at the University ofTokyo. After the Pencil Rockets, the Baby
Rockets, and the Kappa rockets weredeveloped and test launched, he was involved
with the Lambda rockets, the Mu rockets, andJapan’s first satellite “Osumi.”
Itokawa was a member of his high schoolmusic club, where he was deeply involved inmusic with cello performances and ballet etc.
Masahiko Morizono joined Tokyo
Tsushin Kogyo (now Sony) in 1953, where
he later was involved in developing systems
for capturing TV programs. In 1991, he
received an Emmy Award for Lifetime
Achievement in Broadcast Technology.

Bibliography[1] Echoes of Bygone Times, Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum[2] A Century of Sound, Japan Audio Society
60th Anniversary Commemorative CD
and Pamphlet (JAS Journal 2013 Vol. 53,
No. 2)[3] The Story of Disk Recorders by
Yoshiharu Abe, JAS Journal (Eight-part
serial lasting from 2003 to 2004)[4] Fifty Years of Audio History, Japan
Audio Society, IX Broadcasting, 3.1
Recording machines for broadcasting(December 1986)[5] Prototype
StereoAmplifiersfor
Broadcasting Use by Yamamoto andNitori, NHK STRL News, Volume 8, No.
5 pp. 49–55 (May 1965)[6] Filmon Recording and Playback
Machines, Koichi Tsubota, Musen to
Jikken(RadioandExperiments)
magazine (December 1939)[7] Fifty Years of Audio History, Japan
Audio Society, II An Account of The
Filmon from Disk Records (December
1986)[8] Reminiscences of the Filmon by Katsuma
Tani, JAS Journal (July 1980)[9] Property of at Tsubouchi Memorial
Theatre Museum, Waseda University[10] Property of NHK Museum of
Broadcasting21

5 The Shift to Longer-Playing and Stereo Disk
Records

5.1 Changes

in
Sound
PickupTechnology Prior to the Advent of
Digital Recording

Beforeelectrical
recordingwasdeveloped in 1925, recordings were mademechanically without using electrical signals,
a process known as “rappa fukikomi” (hornrecording) in Japan.
With this acoustic recording method,
performers would take turns to go and play infront of the horn that collected the sound.
In 1924, Western Electric developed amethod of electrical recording, which Victor
Talking Machine Company and American
Columbia adopted in 1925, calling them
“Orthophonic” and “Viva-tonal” respectively.
In 1933, Victor Talking Machine Company
changed the name “Orthophonic” to thefamiliar “High-fidelity Recording.” Victor
Company of Japan began using this name in1936. Nineteen twenty-five was the year thatJapan first began radio broadcasts, and it wasalso the year that silent films really gave way
to “talkies,” thanks to Western Electric’s
development of the Movietone sound system.
Western Electric also developed a speakersystem for movie theaters that combined theirlegendary 555-W wideband field-coilcompression driver with a large 1.5 m 15 A
horn. This marvelous historic cinema soundsystem was even widely used throughout
Japan in cinemas and public halls, etc., after
the end of WWII.
The transition from acoustic recording(mechanical recording) to electrical recordingcame with an astounding improvement in therange of reproducible frequencies; althoughacoustic recording could capture from 300 Hz
to 3 kHz (three octaves), electrical recording
could capture from 100 Hz to 5 kHz (overfive octaves). In 1944, during the war, full
frequency range recording (ffrr) wasannounced. Developed by British Decca
mainly for military use, it could capture from
30 Hz to 12 kHz.
Besides the attempts beginning in 1925
at high-fidelity sound reproduction, there was22

a desire to make audio recordings for movies
and play them back in sync with the silent
films. Although they wanted to record
approximately ten minutes of audio on one
record for one silent film, 12-inch (30 cm)
78-rpm SP records could not satisfy thisrequirement. Three options were reducing
their rotational speed, taking time to increase
their recording density, or increasing theirdiameter, but increasing their recording
density would require reconsidering materials
and manufacturing techniques, so thequickest and easiest option was chosen:
16-inch record with a rotational speed slow
enough to record 10 minutes of audio. This
meant selecting a rotational speed of from 33
to 40 rpm. To match the playback speed of
the records with the movie projector,
synchronous motors (which are synchronizedwith the frequency of the power supply) withsimple gear ratios were needed. A rotational
rate of 33 1/3 rpm can be obtained by using
an 1,800-rpm synchronous motor running on
American 60 Hz mains with a reduction ratioof 1:54, or by using a reduction ratio of 1:45
with a 50 Hz, 1,500-rpm synchronous motor.
The 45-rpm disks released in 1949 could beplayed back with a 60 Hz, 1,800-rpm
synchronous motor with a reduction ratio of
1:40; but not with a 50 Hz, 1,500-rpm
synchronous motor with a reduction ratio of
1:45, as there was a small difference in speed.
Incidentally, Columbia Records worked
on realizing microgroove recording (higher
density with narrower grooves and closer
groove spacing) to compete with RCA Victor.
The combination of reducing rotational speed
and using microgrooves eventually led to theLP, but improved materials, etc., were needed
to reduce noise, delaying the LP’scommercialization until after WWII.
Three-dimensional sound also has a long
history. In 1845, the German physiologist
Ernst Heinrich Weber demonstrated the“binaural effect,” where people could
determine the distance and direction of soundsources by using both ears. In 1928, a W.
Bartlett Jones of Chicago filed a patent for a

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

“Method and Apparatus for Audition” that
described a binaural recording system
involving a dummy head. Dummy heads arestill used today to solve sound lateralization
problems with headphones. The basic patent
for three dimensional sound reproduction
from disk records is British Patent No.
394,325 “Improvements in and relating toSound-transmission, Sound-recording andSound-reproducing Systems,” filed by EMI’s
Alan Blumlein in 1931, but it was not until
1957 that this 45/45 system was appliedcommercially by Westrex Corporation, adivision of Litton Industries which acquired itfrom Western Electric. Although Decca soon
followed with stereo records cut with avertical-lateral technique, ultimately it was
the 45/45 system that became the most widelyused.
On April 27, 1933, Bell Laboratories,
who had been researching high-fidelity soundreproduction and three-dimensional soundsince the beginning of 1920, conducted athree-dimensionalsound
reproduction
experiment over telephone connections
between Washington and Philadelphia. The
Philadelphia Orchestra was conducted byAlexander Smallens while Dr. Leopold
Stokowski in Washington manipulated thecontrols. This experiment was overseen by Dr.
Harvey Fletcher, Bell Laboratories’ Directorof Acoustical Research, who later laid out theconditions for high-fidelity reproduction(Table 5.1).
Table 5.1 Conditions for high-fidelity
reproduction by Bell Lab’s Dr. Fletcher fromthe 1933 experiment.
(1) Transmitted noise is quieter than the noise pollution in
the room where the audio is reproduced;(2) Peak dynamic range of 100 dB SPL is required toreproduce symphonies;(3) Distortion caused by nonlinear transmission
characteristics is too small to distinguish;(4) Frequency range must exceed the range of humanhearing;(5) Positioning is well defined.

True stereo (orthostereophonic) was theresult of these experiments 80 years ago. If
Dr. Fletcher might appear before us, then weshould worry that he might urge us forward

by telling us what little progress we havesince made.
Individual recording technologies will be
discussed in more detail below.
5.1.1 Microphones
Microphones are transducers that convert
sound into electricity. First applied topractical use in telephones, they were later
developed for broadcasting. One of theearliest was a carbon button microphone in
the mouthpiece of the 323 W telephone,introduced by Western Electric in 1920. Oneof these was used in Japan’s March 1, 1925
experimental radio broadcast. A regularbroadcast on March 22 used a WesternElectric Model
373
double button
microphone. As these microphones did nothave a sealed construction, they had a defectwhere noise increased as moisture enteredthrough gaps and deteriorated the mobility of
the carbon granules. Various measures weretaken to ensure the mobility of the granules tosolve this. Initially, the carbon granules
would solidify during use, and they would beperiodically taken out and mixed to loosen
them. To solve this, the balanced armature,
which is popular in modern earphones, wasintroduced. This method increased themobility of the carbon granules by setting up
a barrier inside the microphone, and also
improved microphone bass characteristics.
Later, in the 1930s, Japan began
importing high-power transmitters from
Marconi's Wireless Telegraph Company in
Britain and then Telefunken in Germany toincrease the power of Japanese radio
broadcasting stations. Included with thesetransmitters were Reisz microphones, which
had a sealed construction using carbon
granulesandmarble.
Some
Reisz
microphones were later developed in Japan;
notably the MH microphone, which wasdeveloped by and named after Noboru
Marumo and Kichibe Hoshi at NHK Scienceand Technology Research Laboratories in
1932. The MH microphone (Fig. 5.1) used ahollowed marble block filled with carbon
granules, and had a mica diaphragm and acarbon electrode attached to the front, with afilling port for the carbon granules on the
side.

23

Fig. 5.1 The MH microphone, aJapanese-made Reisz microphone. (NHKMuseum of Broadcasting)Information regarding this is scarce,
probably because know-how regarding thecarbon granules was kept secret at the time.
When this microphone was left for extended
periods (around 10 hours), the carbon
granules would gradually settle, andexcessive current would flow because of thedecreased internal resistance, causing
sensitivity to drop. For this reason, before use
it would be held upside down and gently
tapped to loosen the carbon granules, andonly used after the current had returned to thecorrect level.
Reisz microphones used marble, but
microphones using Seto-yaki ceramic insteadof marble appeared after WWII, which wereused with great success in megaphones usedin the general elections for the Upper andLower House under the new constitution.
Their development was handled by Shiro
Kato (former auditor for Aiphone Co. Ltd.),
and they were commercialized under theguidance of Yoshiro Tomita (who formerly
worked at NHK STRL and JVC).
Ribbon microphones and other velocity
microphones appeared in 1933, withmicrophones such as the Altec 639B, theRCA 44-BX and the RCA 77-DX being themain units used in recording studios rightthrough until after the war.
The Altec 639B, called the “iron mask”
for its appearance, is shown in Fig. 5.2. This
microphone was not a simple ribbon
microphone but a hybrid that including bothmoving-coil and ribbon elements.

24

Fig. 5.2 Altec 639B microphone. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)The RCA 44-BX, which became famousas versatile multi-purpose ribbon microphone,is shown in Fig. 5.3.

Fig. 5.3 RCA 44-BX microphone. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)When ribbon microphones came intofrequent use in Japan, the demand for theirloose ribbons to be repaired in Japan soon
appeared. This state of affairs promptedTokyo Denki (Tokyo Electric Company, now
Toshiba) to produce the “Type A,” which in1937 was the first Japanese ribbon velocity
microphone. This microphone, which was
also used to record the imperial edict at theend of the war and can be seen to the right ofthe disk recorder in Fig. 4.6, is very similar inappearance to the RCA 44-BX shown in Fig.
5.3. During the period of reconstruction after
the war, Tokyo Denki developed a series of

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchribbon velocity microphones such as the TypeB, the Type E, the Type F, etc., mostly with
Masao Shimabara (formerly of Tokyo
Shibaura Electric Co., Ltd.).
As these velocity microphones happened
to have a tone suited to enka (Japaneseballads) singers and traditional Japanesemusical instruments, they were widely used
to record many of Japan’s post-war hit songs.
Another velocity microphone, the famous
RCA 77-DX, was used to record hit songs by
Hibari Misora and others who graced theperiod immediately after the war, and it issometimes used in recording even to this day.
The RCA 77-DX is shown from the frontin Fig. 5.4, and from the back in Fig. 5.5. As
can be seen in Fig. 5.5, the microphone had adirectional pattern selector switch on the back.
A label stating that it is “exclusively fortraditional Japanese music” is attached,indicating that it was used to record many
famous Japanese recordings.

With regard to moving-coil microphones
and headphones, the foundations of whichwere laid by Bell Laboratories, the WesternElectric No. 618A was released in the early
1940s, and then introduced to Japan by theirbusiness partner NEC.
Despite their good characteristics, prior
to the war it was known that condenser
microphones had problems with unstable
operation caused by electrical discharges, etc.,
and it was not until after the war that these
problems were solved. It was then thatcondenser microphones such as theTelefunken M49 (Fig. 5.6) appeared.

Fig. 5.6 Telefunken M49 condenser
microphone. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)With regard to Japanese condenser
microphones for broadcasting stations, in1953 the CU-1 unidirectional microphone(Fig. 5.7) was developed after being devisedby NHK STRL.

Fig. 5.4 RCA 77-DX, front. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Fig. 5.7 CU-1 condenser microphone forbroadcasting stations.

Fig. 5.5 RCA 77-DX, back. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)The development of this microphone wassaid to have been fraught with difficulties,
including the fact that studios at that time
were brightly lit by incandescent lights andthe radiant heat caused the diaphragms of
microphones to lose their tension, while alack of insulation caused noise.
In 1955, Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo (nowSony) produced the C-37A microphone,which was modelled after the CU-1. The
C-37A had four small openings at the back of

25

the single diaphragm of the capsule, enablingomnidirectional or unidirectional modes to be
selected by opening and closing a shutter(internal screw).
The sound of this microphone wascriticized by some for its lack of brilliance inpicking up remote voices, but it had anestablished reputation for picking up stringed
instruments such as the koto and the shamisen,
so it made a place for itself in Japanese
broadcasting stations. The C-37A later cameto be widely used not only in Japan but also
overseas in the studios of private
broadcastingstations
andrecordingcompanies.
Many new microphones appeared during
the 1960s and 70s, such as multidirectional
microphones, which can clearly pick up
multiple sound sources; close-talking
microphones, which are indispensable fortelevision broadcasting; mid-side (MS) stereo
microphones, which can pick up stereo soundwith a single microphone; dummy headmicrophones, which do not produce thelateralization that can be heard withheadphones that normal recording produces;and other kinds of microphones for various
purposes.
Outstanding examples include thefollowing:
The Neumann SM 69 stereo condenser
microphone (Fig. 5.8), which could pick up
stereo audio on its own, was widely used inconcert halls, etc.

Fig. 5.8 Neumann (Germany) SM 69 stereocondenser microphone. (Nippon Columbia
Co., Ltd.)
Neumann also developed the KU100
dummy head microphone (Fig. 5.9).

26

Fig. 5.9 Neumann KU 100 dummy headmicrophone. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)Dr. Karl Schoeps, who developed many
products at Schoeps GmbH, designed
microphones with excellent acoustic qualities,
and introduced innovations such as
microphones with low optical reflectivity thatwould not appear conspicuous in television
programs (Fig. 5.10).

Fig. 5.10 Two Schoeps (Germany) condenser
microphones with different reflectivity(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.).
In 1924, Mototaro Eguchi (formerly of
the Technical Research Institute of theJapanese Navy) discovered the electret,
which is a phenomenon where an electriccharge remains after polymer materials arecooled and solidified under a strong electricfield. The researchers at the TechnicalResearch Institute of the Japanese Navy are
now thought of as pioneers in the realm ofelectronics,
havingconducted
groundbreaking research in fields such as
materials for crystal microphones. Some are
now connected with Rion Co., Ltd. Although
the patents concerning Eguchi’s electretphenomena covered nearly all applications
regarding electroacoustic transducers, nearly
40 years passed since its discovery before the

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchelectric microphone was invented at WesternElectric in 1962. In 1968, Sony developed anelectric microphone as small as the end of aperson’s little finger. They then built it into
their TC-1160 cassette player, which they
released on December 1 of the same year,
blazing a trail for multi-purpose microphones
in devices other than telephones.
Microphones must pick up sound fromvery low pressures to high pressures acrossthe entire range of audible frequencies
without distortion and with a sufficiently low
residual noise level. This means working to
improvetheir
soundqualities
andcharacteristics, but in spite of the efforts ofmany pioneers, an ideal microphone still does
not exist that can evenly pick up sound waves
from any direction and from any position in
the sound field. Even omnidirectional
microphones (which are considered nearly
ideal)mayhaveafar-from-ideal
characteristic at the back and the sides,
though they may have a relatively flat frontal
characteristic.
Directional
microphones(which have more problems) have a relatively
flat characteristic in one direction but usually
have a poor base response. It is desirable fordirectional microphone to have a warm, flat
frequency response even with lower levels,
but in reality they usually sound thin fromany angle other than the diaphragm axis.
Making omnidirectional microphones
pick up sound properly from all angles is alsodifficult. Although microphones that canevenly collect both direct sound (arriving
directly from musical instruments) andreflected sound (arriving after undergoingreflection) are desirable, and although many
microphones can evenly collect direct sound,most microphones can only collect reflectedsound and other indirect sound as garbled
noise.
In 1970, Nippon Columbia joined forces
with the Danish company Brüel & KjærSound and Vibration Measurement A/S(B&K) to re-evaluate microphones with greatrecording characteristics. Takeaki Anazawa(former director of Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.; now director of the Japan Audio
Society) participated as a representative of
Nippon Columbia. The famous Danish

recording engineer Peter Willemoës acted as
an intermediary for the two companies.
At
the
time,
microphonesformeasurement and microphones for recording
belonged to completely different worlds.
There was hardly any communication
between engineers, both parties used different
connectors and cables, and they even hadcompletely different ways of powering theirmicrophones. Measurement microphones
needed to always have a flat frequency
characteristic over a wide range oftemperatures, but recording microphones
needed to be easy to use, have a distinctive
sound quality, and have low noise.
The purpose of Anazawa et al.’s review
was to cultivate the strengths of both types of
microphone, and they attempted to takeadvantage of the flat characteristic of
measurement microphones, the low noise ofrecordingmicrophones,
easy-to-use
connectors and cables, and power supplies.
As the 1970s drew to a close, B&K trial
manufactured
field-type
recordingmicrophones that could evenly capture direct
sound, and pressure microphones forrecording that could evenly record indirect
sound in the recording field, and Nippon
Columbia’s European experiments in digitalrecording began. The characteristics of thesetrial microphones are shown in Fig. 5.11.
Although both types of microphone areomnidirectional, they both have different
characteristics. The field-type microphone
only has a flat frequency characteristic on thediaphragm axis, with reduced treble at otherangles. On the other hand, with the pressure
microphone, treble is increased on thediaphragm axis, with a flat frequency
characteristic being obtained at an 80-degree
angle, and although the characteristic changes
at angles off the diaphragm axis, a flat
characteristic is obtained as a whole. A flat
characteristic can be obtained for both direct
and indirect sound with a pressure
microphone if the diaphragm axis is angled at
80 degrees to the music.
This joint investigation and trial
manufacture with the Danish company B&K
was carried out with the coming era of digitalrecording media such as the CD in mind, andmany recordings were introduced that were27

captured by these trial microphones in 1982
when the CD was introduced. A large numberof these microphones were used in February
1985 in relay broadcasting the performance at
the reopening of the Semperoper in Dresden(on the 40th anniversary of its bombing) to
not only West Germany, but also the wholeworld. Opera is a rather plain genre, but thisdid not stop the relay broadcast from gaining
an extraordinary rating of 19% in West
Germany. The successors of thesemicrophones are still being manufactured
today, over 30 years since the adoption of thefirst prototypes, and they are still
indispensable where sound quality isimportant.
Direct sound from musical instruments
on a stage is not difficult to capture with a flat
frequency characteristic. By comparison,
indirect sound reflected by the surrounding
walls is difficult to capture with a flat
frequency characteristic, and in many cases itsounds distant and lacks focus. Direct soundmicrophones had always been placed closer
to instruments to avoid this problem, but thiscreates a vicious circle where indirect soundsounds even further away (relatively) as aresult. This vicious circle was solved by the
introduction of pressure microphones, which
can capture indirect sound with a flat
frequency characteristic.

28

5.1.2

Sound Capture and Sound Field
Reproduction
Sound capture is called pickup, and inmechanicalsoundcapture(acoustic
recording), singers and musicians would
stand in front of the horn and play in quick
succession. Later, with the introduction ofelectrical recording, multiple microphones
came to be used.
Three-channel stereo, which placed thesolo singer (who required adjustment) in thecenter and the accompanying band in the left
and right speakers, became common in theAmerican pop music recording scene in the
1950s, where it was sarcastically called“three-channelmonaural.”Three-trackrecorders were introduced for this, and thenumber of tracks increased continuously until
it reached 16 in the latter half of the 1960s.
Later, 24- and 32-track recorders appeared,
and some recordings even used multiple 24or 32- track recorders. The number ofmicrophones used increased with the numberof tracks. When reproducing sound in stereo,
the locations of the left and right speakers are
the actual sound sources where the actual
speakers are, making localization especiallyprecise. The center, where the sound image islocated between the left and right speakers, is
not as precisely localized as it would be witha real sound source, but it is locatedespecially precisely among virtual soundsources. As this precise positioning isdesirable for solo singers in pop music andannouncers in radio and TV programs, thetendency to emphasize the center was
widespread from the early days of stereo, andthree-channel stereo appeared for the same
reason.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchOutput Level

Frontalcharacteristic(direct sound)
Sound pressure
characteristic(indirect sound)Frequency (Hz)Field-type (sound field) microphone characteristic

Output Level

Frontalcharacteristic(direct sound)
Sound pressure
characteristic(indirect sound)Frequency (Hz)Pressure-type (sound pressure) microphone characteristic

Fig. 5.11 B&K (Denmark) prototype field-type and pressure-type microphones and associatedfrequency characteristics. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)On the other hand, with classical music
and traditional Japanese music, etc., evenwhen several microphones are used to pick upsound in concert halls and other spaces full of
relative reverberation, there is a great deal ofsound leakage between the microphones,
making results similar to those obtainablewith multiple microphones in pop music
recording difficult to achieve. Moreover,volume balance often had to be maintained
between all the instruments in the hall by
repeated practice. Care was needed in suchcases to reproduce the atmosphere of the hall.
Recording engineers disliked making any
particular location more distinct than any
other, desiring positioning unlike thethree-channel mono used for pop music, andcaptured sound with the aim of recording
stereo, but not three-channel stereo.
The methods of using the actual
microphones in the pickup methods describedabove can be broadly classified into
multi-microphone pickup (which uses a large
number of microphones) and one-point
pickup (which uses a small number ofmicrophones). Overall, multi-microphone
pickup is good when recording in a soundspace such as a studio that lacks soundvolume balance, and usually microphones areplaced in close proximity to each instrument
to make later adjustment possible. Then the
output of each microphone is collected at a
mixing console, and the sound is balanced in

post-production. On the other hand, one-point
pickup is carried out on the premise that thesound among the instruments is alreadybalanced, so the microphones are not placednearer to the musical instruments than isnecessary. In cases where the sound isbalanced in the studio or hall where theperformances are held, it suffices to place a
microphone that can capture direct andindirect sound in the best location.
Generally, if multiple microphones areplaced near a sound source and their output
mixed electrically, a comb filter is created,making the sound remarkably muddy. To
avoid this muddiness, it is important to takecare to ensure that the same sound does not
spill
over
to
other
microphones.
Multi-microphone pickup therefore uses
microphones placed near the musicalinstruments to prevent spill. As microphones
are placed in close proximity to instruments
in such cases, they need to be able to handle
large inputs without distorting.
The transition from mono reproduction tostereo reproduction brought many changes
andcaptivatedmanypeople.
The
orthostereophonic system appeared, which,aiming to achieve true stereo, opened up
possibilities for reproducing the spread ofsound sources using sound field data on the
playback side. In the early days of stereo,
various attempts were made to convey theatmosphere of the original sound field29

(including the sound fields of concert halls ormusic clubs, or sound fields synthesized instudios during production). Later referred toas sound field reproduction, these attempts
can be broadly classified in the three
categories shown below.
(1) Sound
Field
Reproduction
byProcessing on the Playback Side
This is a method where recording iscarried out in the same way as for normal
2-channel stereo, and the recording is
processed at the time of playback to recreatea sound field. In one form of early stereo
called ensemble stereo, there was a spread
control knob called a DSC that adjusted the
spread of the sound image to the left and theright. This calculated the sum and thedifference of the left and right signals,
adjusted the levels of the sum and thedifference, and returned the signals to the left
and right channels. Emphasizing the sum
causes the left-right spread to narrow, andemphasizing the difference causes the spreadto increase. Listeners rotated this knob toadjust the spread to an optimal setting for the
acoustic properties of the room, thepositioning of the ensemble stereo, and thelistener’s personal preference, before sittingback and listening to the reproduced sound.
Generally, the spread of the sound image
varies due to the correlation between thesound arriving at the listener’s left and rightears, and it is possible to quantitatively
measure it by the cross-correlation function
between the ears. This method of evaluationis also used to evaluate architectural
acoustics.
In 1961, a stereo with a springreverberation unit was released. By using thisstereo, reverberation (reverb) could be added
at home. The second half of 1970s saw the
introduction of digital signal processors(DSPs) in sound reproduction systems withreverb functions, making it possible to add
electronic reverb (which was called “soundfield generation” at the time).
This kind of reverb function was limitedby the fact that the reverb that was added thatwas different from the optimal reverb
selected and introduced for the programsource that was used as the subject of pickup30

and recording. It also had the drawback ofbeing unable to decrease the original reverb,
only increase it.
In 2010, revolutionary sound field
reproduction technologies that broke down
the above limitations appeared, and thecontinued development of the old yet new
topic of sound field reproduction is
anticipated. This reverb control technology
was invented by Kinoshita and Nakatani et al.
ofNTT
Communication
ScienceLaboratories . This invention is based on
the fact that reverberations are repetitions ofsound that have already arrived, and it
analyses the audio input and decomposes thesound into direct sound and reverberant
sound. If they can be separated, then the
proportion of each can be adjusted and used
to construct a signal for playback. Thismethod makes it possible to reduce theamount of direct sound or reverberant soundadded to the sound in the original programsource, and it also makes reducing theamount of reverb contained in the original
possible.
(2) Sound Field Reproduction Using
Special Pickup Methods
Methods such as dummy head recording
fall into this category and although 2-channel
stereo is used, pickup is carried out with theaim of reproducing the sound in a specificreproduction environment, so these methods
are for sound field reproduction in specificreproduction environments. Although dummy
head recording has been used for a long time
as a method of achieving sound field
reproduction, its spread was hindered by its
lack of compatibility with speakerreproduction and the difficulty of adapting
existing production techniques for musicprogram sources that were developed withspeaker reproduction in mind. These
problems have persisted since the beginning,
and they remain as yet unsolved, even today.
On the other hand, the spread of portableaudio has caused the number of people(especially young people) who enjoy audio
through headphones or earphones to increase.
Ironically, because music recorded on
dummy heads is nearly nonexistent on themarket, these headphone and earphone users

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchare still listening to recordings made forspeaker reproduction, and they are enjoying
music without being able to localize soundimages in front of them (called lateralization).
(3) Sound Field Reproduction Using MoreThan Two Channels
This category covers methods forreproducing sound fields using two or morechannels, such as 4-channel and 5.1-channeltransmission systems.
In the latter half of the 1960s, the entire
audio world was fascinated with 4-channel
audio, but the key users were indifferent. It
was amidst this state of affairs that in 1969
Tanetoshi Miura of Hitachi Central ResearchLaboratory (formerly president of the
Acoustical Society of Japan) conductedpsychological evaluation experiments into
4-channel audio in cooperation with Nippon
Columbia (which was just about to go under
the umbrella of the Hitachi Group) using adiverse assortment of bands. Although somevariation was found to be caused by speakerplacement, pickup methods, and music genre,
the results were extremely disappointing:regardless of how much effort was spent tomake 2-channel stereo into 4-channel, theeffect was less then half of that obtained bymaking mono into 2-channel stereo, andsubstituting 4-channel for 6-channel or
8-channel resulted in only quarter of the
improvement obtained by going from mono
to stereo. The results showed that even withfour channels, it was better to place thespeakers to the sides rather than to the back.
There are two types of sound field
reproduction:
passivesound
field
reproduction that can recreate the atmosphereof a hall as described in 1) above, andsurround sound, a more active method ofsound field reproduction which places thesound image on all sides.
In early the early 1970s, 4-channel
records that could make surround soundpractical became a popular topic, beginningwith a matrix format 4-channel record
announced by Sansui Electric Co., Ltd. inJune 1970. This matrix format 4-channel
record used a normal band music signal
created by a matrix encoder before cutting,which was then used to cut the disk. Because

the signals were passed through a matrix
decoder during playback, despite the fact thatthe cutting itself had a large verticalcomponent in the groove, the grooves were
not very different from those found on
ordinary records.
In September 1970, JVC unveiled adiscrete 4-channel record called the CD-4,
which is described in more detail in section
5.4. Then on June 25 of the following year,
JVC released “Wonderful CD-4 Sound”(CD4B-5001), the world’s first discrete
4-channel record (Fig. 5.12).

Fig. 5.12 The label of “Wonderful CD-4
Sound,” the world’s first discrete 4-channel
record.
Although many interesting technicalendeavors were attempted with the CD-4, it
unfortunately failed to gain popularity. The
biggest reason for this failure is thought tohave been the quality of the content itself.
Few great pieces of music have been
composed for surround sound that can
localize in all directions. One was “Requiem,”
composed by the French composer Hector
Berlioz, which premiered at the Hôtel desInvalides in Paris, but no other great pieces
followed, and there were very few pop
masterpieces.
In cinema on the other hand, there areworks which take the location and movementof the sound image into consideration during
production and playing these using 5.1
channel or 7.1 channel surround sound iseffective in movie theaters or in the home.
5.1.3 Methods of Recording
Around the time of the Second World
War, audio from performances in studios andhalls would be input directly into record
cutting machines without modification – a31method called direct cutting (also referred toas direct-to-disk recording). However, as thismethod made editing or re-recording (cutting
another master disk) to correct theperformance and adding various other effects
difficult, after the end of the war, from the
1950s onward, magnetic recorders came to be
introduced. Magnetic recorders only had
enough tracks for monaural recording at first,
and two tracks later became popular as they
entered the era of stereo, but 3-track recorders
quickly appeared on the market with thearrival of the era of American pop music tofacilitate the adjustment of songs placed in
the center. Later, as “British sound” becamecame into fashion in the latter half of the
1960s, the number of tracks gradually
increased.
The number of tracks for magnetic
recorders during that period could be broadlyclassified into two categories: 2-track/4-trackrecording and 8-track/16-track/24-track/
32-track multi-track recording. The former
mainly used a small number of microphones
for pickup, and the latter mainly used
multi-microphone pickup. An analogue
2-track recorder is shown in Fig. 5.13.

Fig. 5.13 Studer (Switzerland) A820 2-track
analog recorder. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)A similar analog 2-track recorder for
cutting that could produce advanced signals
to control groove pitch and depth is shown in
Fig. 5.14.

cutting. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)This reproducer was equipped withbypass and extension rollers and an additional
playback head to obtain the advanced signals
necessary for controlling groove depth andpitch, and it selected an optimal advancesignal depending on the speed of the tape andthe rotational rate of the disk, which it thenused to regulate the cutting machine.
Figure 5.15 shows a Studer A827
24-track analog recorder from Switzerland.

Fig. 5.15 Studer A827 24-track analog
recorder. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)At the end of the 1960s, disk records
reached a plateau in terms of the technology
developed up to that point, sales stabilized
and there was a desire for records with added
value. From this state of affairs came thedesire for a new breakthrough. During thisperiod, record companies attempted to makevarious improvements in recording and in therecord manufacturing process, and these wereactually put on the market and reviewed byaudiophiles. Some examples of these
improvements are shown in Table 5.16.
Table 5.16 compares the production andmanufacturing process for normal records
shown in the top row with the improvements(A) to (G), and assesses what methods wereactually accepted. These improvements
captured the interest of audio fans, and as
they demanded that they be able to judge theimprovements with their own playback
systems and their own ears, and as far as
possible the various improvements were
elucidated when the records were put on sale.

Fig. 5.14 Studer A80 2-track reproducer for

32

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchStandard Record Production/Manufacturing Process
PickupPlayback

33 1/3 rpm cutting

MasterMother

Stamper

Press

Standard
recordAnalogrecording

Playback

45 rpm cutting

MasterMother

StamperPress

45 rpmrecordAnalogrecording

Playback

33 1/3 rpm cutting

MasterPress

Masterpress
recordPlayback

33 1/3 rpm cutting

MasterMother

Stamper

Press

S/N
StretcherrecordHalf-speed
cutting

MasterMother

StamperPress

Halfspeed
cuttingrecord45 rpm cutting

MasterMother

StamperPress

DirectcuttingrecordStamper

Press

Distortion
corrected
recordStamper

Press

PCM/
digitalrecordingrecordAnalogrecording

MixingA. 30 cm 45 rpm records (1967~)
PickupMixingB. Master Press
Pickup Mixing

C. Dolby S/N Stretcher
PickupMixingRecording encoded with
Dolby®

Decoder

D. Half-speed Cutting
PickupMixingAnalogrecordingAnalog half-speed
playback

E. Direct Cutting (1969~)
PickupMixingF. Distortion Compensation Cutting (referred to at the time as non-destructive cutting (1970~)
PickupMixingAnalogrecordingDistortion
Playback Compensation

33 1/3 rpm cutting

MasterMother

G. PCM/Digital Recording Record (sold from 1971, used in normal recording/sales from 1972)
Pickup Mixing

Digitalrecording

Digital half-speed
playback

Half-speed cutting

MasterMotherEfforts to improve sound quality began from the latter half of the 1960s (boxes with thick lines
indicate distinctive area)

Fig. 5.16 Examples of attempts made to improve the record production/manufacturing process.
Table 5.16 compares the production andmanufacturing process for normal records
shown in the top row with the improvements(A) to (G), and assesses what methods wereactually accepted. These improvements
captured the interest of audio fans, and as
they demanded that they be able to judge theimprovements with their own playback
systems and their own ears, and as far as
possible the various improvements were
elucidated when the records were put on sale.
(A) These were 30 cm, 33 1/3-rpm LP
records that had their rotational rate increased
to 45 rpm. These records were released into
the market in 1967, and although they had thedrawback of being limited to certain kinds ofmusic by their short recording time, theygained support from audiophiles.
(B) Master Press records were records
that were pressed directly from master disks
without having made a mother and stampers,
and as they omitted the process of making amother and stampers, they were unsuitable
for mass production. Priceless high-value
classic editions which would only beavailable in limited runs of approximately
1,000 copies were sold and were received
well.

(C) Dolby S/N Stretcher was a systemdeveloped by Dolby Laboratories in England(who later transferred their headquarters to
the U.S.) to reduce noise created by magnetic
tapes during playback. This system reduced
noise by increasing the low-level signals that
contained undesirable noise above the actuallevels during recording, and decreasing themagain during playback. S/N Stretcher was
effective in analog multitrack recordings ofpop music in particular, because even if parts
with many instruments playing were fine,when only a few instruments were playing,
the signal from other instruments was, ofcourse, not added, but the noise from each of
the tracks was. Dolby Laboratories released aform of S/N Stretcher for professional use
called Type A, and later developed andreleased S/N Stretcher for cassette tape as
Type B and Type C.
(D) Half-speed cutting is a technique thataims to improve the cutting characteristics
and sound quality of a cutter head at highfrequencies, and involves sending the signal
to the cutting machine at half speed andreducing the cutting speed by half. Cutting
systems are generally designed to cover theentire range of human hearing from low tohigh pitch. Accordingly, half-speed cutting

33

with music that contains bass increases therisk of decreased levels of bass or distortion.
To avoid these risks, the introduction of units
that could reproduce and deliver the signal
with a stable characteristic even at low
frequencies of around 10 Hz (such as
PCM/digitalrecording and replaying
machines) was necessary. Even with analog
recording, the effectiveness of half-speed
cutting for music that does not contain muchbass, such as shamisen music, was wellknown.
(E) Direct cutting bypassed the magnetic
recorder, making it possible to improve thenoise, harmonic distortion, modulation
distortion, and wow and flutter associatedwith the use of such units.
(F) Playback distortion compensatedcutting records were made with a techniquethat carried out correction during cutting to
reduce the distortion caused by differences inthe shapes of the cutting styluses andplayback styluses introduced in 1970 (seeSection 5.4, Fig. 5.54 to 5.58).
(G) These records are manufactured witha process that substituted PCM/digitalrecorders for analog magnetic recorders.
Records manufactured as a trial were released
in 1970 (Fig. 5.21, Fig. 5.22), with sales
continuing in the form of LPs and CDs from1972 up to the present (Fig. 5.24).
The method of improvement that wascommended as having the greatest
improvement among methods (A) to (F)described above in terms of sound quality
was direct cutting, which eliminated the noise,harmonic
distortion,andmodulation
distortion created by magnetic recorders.
One of the first experiments in direct
cutting in the era of LP records was at Nippon
Columbia’s Studio No. 2 in Akasaka, Tokyoin 1969, where the output signal from a live
performance was sent to three cutting rooms
downstairs in the same building. This differedfrom ordinary cutting as it was impossible toknow the groove pitch and groove depth inadvance, so three cutting machines were each
set with different cutting levels, groove pitch,and groove depth to provide levels that varied
from a wide safety margin to nearly no safetymargin. Recording was then carried out withthe expectation of success. Flamenco, jazz,34

and Argentine tango were selected as they
had improvisation and mistakes were not very
likely to occur, The records were recorded at
45 rpm, which took sound quality and thefrequency of musical and technical mistakes
into consideration, and gave a little over 15
minutes of playback per side. These werereleased as 45-rpm doubles with a total of justover an hour of playing time.
Some direct cutting disks released at thetime are shown in Fig. 5.17, 5.18, and 5.19.

Fig. 5.17 Direct cutting disk released in June
1969 containing Argentine tango. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.18 Direct cutting disk released in
September 1969 containing Flamenco.
(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.19 Direct cutting disk released in
November 1969 containing Jazz. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchAfter direct cutting, in second place withgood reviews came half-speed cutting, which
could cut high pitches cleanly by reducing the
cutting speed by half.
The other methods (Master Press, Dolby
S/N Stretcher recording, playback distortioncompensated cutting, etc.) were introduced,
and although they were well received to acertain degree, they did not gain muchrecognition.
On the basis of the above, it was
concluded that simultaneous direct cutting
and half-speed cutting would be ideal,
although it was thought to be theoretically
impossible.
Around the same time in broadcasting,the good sound quality of live broadcasts
without intermediate magnetic recorders wasrecognized. Between 1967 and 1969, Kenji
Hayashi and others at NHK STRL worked to
improve the modulation distortion created bymagnetic recorders, developing the world’s
first PCM/digital recorder (first in mono, laterin stereo), using an industrial helical scanning
VTR as a recording machine. Although thisrecorder did not meet the specifications forbeing installed at production sites because it
could not do editing, nonetheless it was morethan adequate as an experimental machine,
and took the world by surprise. Despite that,
however, it was not very well received at
NHK production sites, and the developers of
this PCM recorder sought opportunities toparticipate in evaluation experiments
elsewhere.
This PCM/digital recorder from NHK
STRL was used in the assessment
experiments conducted by Hitachi Groupdescribed in Section 5.1.2 (3), producing
valuable evaluation results for participants.
In two channels, the PCM/digital so was
overwhelmingly superior to the conventional
recorders that all of the people involved in theexperiment were led to wonder if it would bebetter to practically implement PCM/digitalrecording as a priority over 4-channel sound,and focus on 4-channel sound later.
Four-channel sound did, in fact, die an
early death, and a few years later PCM/digitalrecording was made a practical reality, andapproximately 10 years later, digitally

recorded music reached homes in the form of
CDs.
Takeaki Anazawa, who facilitated theseevaluation experiments, wasted no time inborrowing the PCM/digital recorder shown in
Fig. 5.20 from NHK STRL, and began
conducting full-scale tests of PCM/digitalrecording at studios and concert halls with thehelp of Nippon Columbia’s recording staff
and production staff.

Fig. 5.20 NHK STRL’s PCM/digital recorder.
During recording tests with NHK’s
PCM/digital recorder, the two analog disks
shown in Fig. 5.21 and 5.22 were born. The
record in Fig. 5.21 was released by Nippon
Columbia in January 1971, and the recorderdeveloped by NHK STRL was used to record
it. Still, as it was unable to edit the audio, its
operational efficiency and the amount ofaudio yielded were only slightly better thanwith direct cutting.

Fig. 5.21 Something by Steve Marcus + Jiro
Inagaki & Soul Media, recorded with an early
PCM/digital recorder. (Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.)

35

Figure 5.22 shows a live recording
released in April 1971 made on a recorder(without editing capabilities) developed by
NHK STRL.

The specifications shown in Table 5.2
were established at the same time as therecording experiments described above wereconducted with the help of people such as
Kenji Hayashi (former head of the Consumer
Products Research Center, Hitachi Ltd.) who
oversaw development at NHK.

Fig. 5.22 The World of Stomu Yamashita by
Tsutomu Yamashita, a live concert recording
made at Tokyo Bunka Kaikan Recital Hallwith an early PCM/digital recorder. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Table 5.2Required specifications for PCM/digital recorders (1969) and the performance,
configuration and format of the Denon DN-023R (1972)
1. Required specifications as determined in
evaluation tests (1969)

2. Specifications achieved in 1972

(1) Wide dynamic range.
(2) Low distortion rate.
(3) No wow or flutter.
(4) No crosstalk between channels.
(5) Flat frequency characteristic across a wide
range of frequencies.
(6) 4 channels of multi-channel
recording/reproduction of more.
(7) Ability to copy data from a single channel.
(8) Capable of half-speed cutting.
(9) No loss of sound quality during storage.
(10) No ghosting, etc.
(11) Equipped with advanced head for cutting.
(12) Capable of editing(1) Dynamic range: ≥76 dB.
(2) Distortion rate: ≤0.1% (with active levels).
(3) Wow/flutter: undetectable.
(4) Crosstalk between channels: −80 dB or lower.
(5) 0 (DC) −20 kHz (deviation of +0.5dB or lower).
(6) Eight channels of recording possible.
(7) Possible to copy all of the data with 2 recorders,
individual data copy possible with two systems.
(8) Possible: 0 (DC) −20 kHz (deviation of +0.5dB orlower).
(9) Data errors observed to increase after storage, but
without a detectable decrease in sound quality.
(10) Ghosting level: −80dB or lower.
(11) Approx. 1 second (1/2 a revolution of a 33 1/3-rpm
record) advanced stereo signal output possible.
(12) Capable of tape cutting/editing.

3. Configuration and format of the Denon DN-023R PCM/digital recording system(1) PCM/digital audio converter(2) 4-head, low-band VTR (modified)(3) VTR activity monitor(4) Format
Modulation method: Pulse code modulation (PCM)
PCM signal format: 13-bit natural binary code
Transmission clock frequency: 7.1825 MHz
Voice sampling rate: 47.25 kHz
Transmission waveform: Standard NTSC TV signal (excluding vertical synchronizing signal)
No. of voice channels: 8/4/2 switchable
Advance signal recording method: Direct recording of analog signal
No. of advanced signal channels: 2
Magnetic tape device: Modified 4-head low-band VTR
Tape speed: Recording: 38 cm/sec.; playback: 38 cm/sec./19 cm/sec. (switchable)

36

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchLater in 1970, with the approval of the
new management of Nippon Columbia, a
joint development project between NHK
STRL and Nippon Columbia was commenced.
Development was carried out by Hayashi,
Miyashita, Todoroki, Oshinden and Anazawa,
who were Koichi Tsubota’s junior colleagues
at the Nippon Columbia factory in Mitaka
City where he worked before and after WWII.
In 1972, exactly 10 years before digitalrecordings reached consumers in the form of
CDs in 1982, Nippon Colombia released theDenon DN-023R, the world’s first
PCM/digital recorder for record mastering(Fig. 5.23) was completed, and it began to beinstalled in recording and record production
sites from April of that year.

Fig. 5.23 The Denon DN-023R, the world’s
first PCM/digital recorder for record
mastering (1972). (Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.)
Digital recorders such as this require data
recorders that can record and reproduce
digital data in a stable manner.
NHK’s PCM/digital recorder shown in
Fig. 5.20 used a one-inch industrial VTR as adigital data recorder. Recording tests with thisrecorder at recording sites revealed a problem
with its stability during operation as a data
recorder. Other issues such at its lack ofediting capabilities emerged, and theimportance of drastically improving it wasrecognized. If eight channels of audio datawith a 48 kHz sampling rate and a 16-bit bit
depth are to be recorded and reproduced
simultaneously, then the machine must beable to record and reproduce digital data at a
rate of at least six megabits per second.
Moreover, there were no data recorders at thetime that could cut and edit recorded data,

produce advanced signals (signals advanced
by approximately one second) to control
groove pitch and depth during cutting, andreplay the tape at half speed for half-speed
cutting.
After searching for a data recorder whileconsidering factors such as operational
stability and ease of modification, a four-head
VTR for broadcasting use was settled upon.
By coincidence, Shiba Electric Co., Ltd., whowere manufacturing four-head VTRs forbroadcasting stations, became part of Hitachi
Denshi Co., Ltd. (now Hitachi Kokusai
Electric, Inc.) at nearly the same time as
Nippon Columbia became a member ofHitachi Group. So the four-head VTRs began
to be manufactured within the Hitachi Group.
The man who took charge of modifying the
VTR at Hitachi Denshi was Toshiaki
Kawamura, who supervised the writing ofHistory of the Video-Tape Recorder in Japanand the Preservation of (Early) Examples as asystematization report for the National
Museum of Nature and Science in March
2001.
The recorder portion of the PCM/digitalrecording equipment shown in Fig. 5.23 (onthe right of the picture) used a 4-head
low-bandblack-and-whiteVTRfor
broadcasting use. This VTR had lost its placein broadcasting stations with the transition tocolor for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, so it wasused to record digital audio in the form ofwhite dots. As this recorder was developed
during the era of 4-channel sound, it had thecapacity to record eight channels, and it was
configured so that reducing the number ofchannels would increase the accuracy of therecording. Editing, which is necessary inrecord production, could be done in the formof cutting and splicing the tape by hand. It
also had the ability to produce advanced
signals to control groove pitch and depth
during cutting, and deliver audio data at half
speed to enable high-fidelity cutting at highfrequencies.
The first recording made on the recordershown in Fig. 5.23 was made in April 1972 at
Aoyama Tower Hall in Tokyo, where the
Smetana Quartet, pride of Czechoslovakia,
played Mozart’s String Quartet No. 17 “TheHunt” and other pieces.

37

At the time, string quartets were a kind ofmusic that traditionally demanded the mostprecise of ensembles (unlike jazz, flamenco,Argentine tango, and percussion ensembles),and getting consent from the performers torelease the record without editing was
impossible.
Figure 5.24 shows the recording made in
April 1972 being edited.

Fig. 5.25 The first analog record in the world
to be recorded on a proper PCM/digitalrecorder with editing capabilities: Mozart’s
String Quartets No. 17 “The Hunt” and No.
15, recorded on April 24–26 at Aoyama
Tower Hall, Tokyo. (Nippon Columbia Co.,
Ltd.)
Fig. 5.24 Editing scene from 1972.
During editing, the analog track of the2-inch tape recording is played and thecutting point is found by listening to thereproduced sound. By doing this as describedabove, these analog signals are also used tochange the groove pitch and depth of the diskduring cutting. Then a method was used
where the recording side of the 2-inch
magnetic tape near the editing equipment wascoated with magnetic powder dissolved in avolatile liquid, the recording tracks werelocated under a microscope, the tape was cut
on both sides of the splice where therecording tracks joined, the magnetic powder
was cleaned up, and then the tape was tapedwith thin aluminum splicing tape. Tens of
thousands of splices were made using thisediting method over the course of
approximately eight years, continuing until
the appearance of the random access editing
system shown in Fig. 5.36. Now, 40 years
later, editing can be done on laptop
computers that have miniature high-capacity
memory media and signal processing
capabilities.
The first product to be recorded using theworld’s first proper PCM/digital recorderwith editing capabilities, and then recorded as
an analog record was released in October
1972. This record is shown in Fig. 5.25.

38

A small and robust recorder was madetwo years later in 1974, and in the same year,
digital recording was commenced in Western
Europe. The first digital recording in Eastern
Europe was made in 1975, and the first digitalrecording in the U.S. was made in 1977.
French president Charles de Gaulle had
ridiculed visiting Japanese Prime Minister
Hayato Ikeda in 1962 by referring to him as“that transistor radio salesman,” but Japan’s
PCM/digital recording work in Europe andAmerica put an end to that and views toward
Japan changed, and not only France but also
other countries began to present Japan
art-related awards and technology-related
awards. Some of these awards are listed inTable 5.3.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchTable 5.3 Awards presented by various countries for Japan’s PCM/digital recording work.
Grand Prix du Disque ADF, Paris (Nippon Columbia, 1974 Maria João Pires, W.A.
Mozart, Complete Piano Sonatas)
International "Ferenc Liszt" Record Grand Prix (1975 Dezső Ránki Plays Franz
1976 Hungary
Liszt)
Edison Music Award (Nippon Columbia, 1974 Maria João Pires, W.A. Mozart,
1977 Netherlands
Complete Piano Sonatas)
Billboard Trendsetter Award (Nippon Columbia, World’s first PCM/digital
1978 USArecording process)
MONTREUX International Record Award, Prix d'Honneur Technique (Nippon
1980 Switzerland
Colombia, World’s first PCM/digital recording process)
ACC Disk Award (Nippon Colombia, Huguette Dreyfus, Bach and Scarlatti
1985 France
Collections)1986 Japan
Japan Audio Society Award (Software, PCM/digital recording process success)2nd Agency for Cultural Affairs Art Award (Nippon Colombia, 1985–87 Gustav
1987 Japan
Mahler, The Complete Symphonies with Eliahu Inbal)
1st Diapason d’Or (Nippon Colombia, 1985–87 Gustav Mahler, The Complete
1988 France
Symphonies with Eliahu Inbal))
German Record Award (Nippon Colombia, 1985–87 Gustav Mahler, The
1988 Germany
Complete Symphonies with Eliahu Inbal)
Audio Engineering Society (New York) Silver Medal (Individual, PCM/digital
1992 USArecording process success)1976 France

In this way, the dream of the Japanesepeople to see great works of art perfected wasachieved with the help of technology. Figure5.26 shows the exterior of the Alte Oper inFrankfurt, where the celebrated Eliahu Inbal
conducted the complete Mahler symphonies,
and Fig. 5.27 shows a scene from therecording session.

Fig. 5.26 Alte Oper, Frankfurt.

In 1985, after much discussion andpractice over the space of ten years, therecording of the complete collection of
Beethoven’s string quartets with the Smetana
Quartet was completed. Soon after the project
was completed, the quartet disbanded.
Recording of Hibari Misora’s album, thecompletecollectionof
Beethovensymphonies conducted by Otmar Suitner, andjazz music in the U.S. were also completed,and by the time CD releases began in 1982,
there were nearly 400 titles of digital content.
To find the theoretical dynamic range ofa given bit depth, the bit depth is multipliedby 6 dB and 1.8 dB is added: therefore thedynamic range of 12-bit audio is 73.8 dB, andthe dynamic range of 16-bit audio is 97.8 dB.
Although the bit depth can easily be increased
by increasing the number of comparators,
achieving precision is a completely different
problem. Sixteen-bit numbers are easy torepresent, but actually achieving 16-bits ofaccuracy over the entire target frequency
band with enough absolute accuracy andrelative accuracy is extremely difficult.

39

Fig. 5.27 Mahler’s complete symphonies conducted by Eliahu Inbal with the
hr-Sinfonieorchester being recorded at the Alte Oper, Frankfurt (using the Danish B&K
microphone shown in Fig. 5.11).
No. of Bits
(bits)

Dynamic Range
17.5-bit equivalent
17-bit equivalent (for CDs)
15.5-bitequivalent14.5-bitequivalent

14-bit +emphasis16-bit + emphasis
16-bit (same as CDs)(see Fig. 5.31 )13-bit +emphasis14-bitNippon Colombia
Recorder Note: Emphasis
13-bit(Fig. 5.29) If preemphasis is used on high-pitch
Nippon Colombia Recorderareas then with orchestral music it has(Fig. 5.23)
the effect of expanding dynamic
range. With a CD, if emphasis is12-bit + quantization (broken line conversion)
selected, then an increase of
Recorder developed by NHK
approximately 1-bit equivalent can beobtained.
(Fig. 5.20)
13-bit equivalentAround 1990, units
with 16-bit + and up to
20-bit equivalentstarted to appear.

Year

Fig. 5.28 Early PCM/digital recorder bit depth and dynamic range trends.
The bit depth and dynamic range ofrecorders increased from the end of the 1960s,
arriving at the 16 bits per channel
specification of the CD in the latter half of the
1970s. This progress is shown in Fig. 5.28.
The recorder with a 15.5-bit equivalentcharacteristic indicated in Fig. 5.28 is the
Denon DN-034R, which is shown in Fig. 5.29.
This recorder was transported to New York in
the latter half of the 1970s and was used tomake 8-track multitrack jazz recordings. The
recordings received Billboard’s TrendsetterAward in 1978 for being America’s firstcommercial digital recording.

40

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchFig. 5.30 Sony Digital Audio Processor
PCM-1630 (top) and U-matic VTR (bottom).
(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Fig. 5.29 Denon DN-034R 8-channel
PCM/digital recorder, used for multitrackrecording in New York and other places in
the latter half of the 1970s. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)The upper part of this particular recorder
was a Hitachi Denshi SV-7400, which was
famous in the era of 4-head VTRs, andinstalled underneath was a time basecorrector unit in place of the processor shownon the bottom in Fig. 5.29. This VTR was
registered as one of the Essential Historical
Materials for Science and Technology by the
National Museum of Nature and Science andis on display at the NHK Museum of
Broadcasting.
Digitalaudio
processors(Sony
PCM-1600, PCM-1630) that used a
semi-professional U-matic VTR as a recorderappeared at the end of the 1970s, a few years
before the introduction of the CD, and theDenon DN-035RmkII, a 4-channel, 16-bit
digital recorder that used the same U-matic
tapes and U-matic VTRs appeared at thesame time. Figure 5.30 shows a Sony
PCM-1630 and a U-matic VTR, while Fig.
5.31 shows a Denon DN-035RmkII.

Fig. 5.31 Denon DN-035RmkII 4-channel
PCM/digital recorder, which used a U-matic
VTR (only the processor is shown). (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)Sony and Mitsubishi Electric also soldfixed-head digital recorders that did not use
VTRs for recording. Figure 5.32 shows aSony 2-track fixed-head digital recorder.

Fig. 5.32 Sony PCM-3402 2-track fixed-head
digital recorder. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Figure 5.33 shows a Mitsubishi Electric
2-track fixed-head digital recorder.

41

Fig. 5.33 Mitsubishi Electric 2-track
fixed-head digital recorder. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Later, multitrack recorders also appeared.
Figure 5.34 shows a Sony PCM-3348
48-track digital recorder, and Fig. 5.35 showsa Mitsubishi Electric X-850 32-track digitalrecorder.
Both were fixed-head recorders.

Fig. 5.34 Sony PCM-3348 48-track digitalrecorder. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)circuits, etc. Incidentally, with regard to
mixing consoles in general, many mixing
console manufacturers appeared after WWIIin the UK, where demand for loudspeakers
for the many giant halls that exist there wasparticularly great, and they have retained alarge share of the market even to this day.
If real-time processing can be carried out
digitally using high-speed multipliers with
control programs and amplifiers, tone control
circuits, mixing circuits from analog mixers,
then digital mixers can be realized. The
development of digital mixing consoles began
at various companies during the mid-1970s.
At the time, semiconductor technology was
making similar progress to that of digital
media like the CD, reaching a practical levelby the early 1980s; but issues such as thedelay of convenient and cheap high-speed
multipliers in reaching the market, the needfor research to solve sound quality
degradation caused by the occurrence of
conversion errors and arithmetic errors, anddelays in developing a machine interface forthe mixing console itself held them back until
the mid-1980s, after CDs were introduced.
5.1.4 Editing and Mixing Down
Editing involves finishing a work andcorrecting any mistakes made during theperformance.
During editing, the items shown in Fig.
5.4 are important.
Table 5.4 Important conditions for editing.
(1)

(2)
(3)

Fig. 5.35 Mitsubishi Electric X-850 32-track
digital recorder. (Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)This type or recording system was in use
around the time when CDs began to be soldin 1982.
Pickup and recording work requires amixing console containing microphone
amplifiers, tone control circuits, and mixing

42

The ability to search for the place to be edited
while listening to the piece or looking at the
waveform.
The ability to join two edits together.
No discontinuities (click sound) at splices.

Prior to World War II, editing wasrestricted to setting up several disk record
players and disk recorders, synchronizing
them, and sending the output to a recorder. In
the 1950s, when magnetic recorders that usedmagnetic tape were introduced, tape splicing
became widespread. When cutting andsplicing, the technician slowly moves tape byhand, listening to the sound to find the edit
point, which is then marked. Then the marked
tape is cut diagonally to avoid a clicking
sound, and splicing tape is used to reconnect

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchit. Although narrow recording tape with asmall number of tracks was cut and spliced,
multitrack recordings on wide tape were not.
Such tapes were corrected by re-recording
over the parts of the tracks that contained
mistakes.
These
multitrackrecordings
arecombined into a small number of tracks in aprocess called mixing down or tracking down
to make the stereo sound fields, etc., of thecompleted recording.
In the early days of digital recording,recordings from fixed head recorders with asmall number of tracks or from four-headVTRs were edited by cutting and splicing,and recordings from helical scanning VTRs,
such as the U-matic, were edited by copying.
Although this kind of editing was doneby splicing or copying, a random accesseditor that used a mainframe (IBMplug-compatible machine) hard disk unit(controlled by a TI 9900 microprocessor) for
use in content editing environments wasintroduced in 1981, just before theintroduction of the CD.
This enormous editor is shown in Fig.
5.36.
This editor increased editing efficiency
significantly, and contributed toward
improving the quality of sound sources for
CDs and increasing the efficiency of
production. Today, random access editing canbe done at home with simple software, thanks
to the existence of cheap personal computerswith plenty of storage capacity. With classicalmusic, where the same music is recorded
several times with different musicians, there
is a limit to the ability of people to achieve
recording better that the one before them, so
more edits are necessary.

Fig. 5.36 DENON DN-036ED random access editing system.
In some cases, an LP or CD withapproximately 50 minutes of playing time
will require editing in over 200 or even 300
locations. In such cases, the question of how
to guarantee the artistic qualities of theperformance is important.
Later, the Denon DN-050MD digitalmastering/mixing console for cutting (Fig.
5.37) was released, establishing a digitalprocess from recording through to the cutting
amplifier.

43

Fig. 5.37 DENON DN-050MD digitalmastering/mixing console. (Nippon Columbia
Co., Ltd.)5.1.5 Cutting (Mastering)
Beforemagnetic
recorderswereintroduced, master disks (wax disks made ofmontan wax with beeswax and vegetablewax) were cut in disk recorders and then sent
to be duplicated. After magnetic recorders
were introduced, audio was put throughediting, mixing down, further adjustment andinspection processes, and then the content forthe disk record was put on a magnetic tape(called a master tape) and sent to the cutting
room. The cutting process was called “cutting”
or “disk mastering.”
During cutting, the cutting stylus of a
cutting machine (a cutting lathe with a groove
cutting unit called a cutter head attached) cutsa master disk called a lacquer. This lacquer
disk consists of a flat aluminum core disk
coated with a mixed solution of nitrocellulose,benzole, butyl acetate, butyl alcohol, ethyl
acetate, DOP, castor oil, ethyl alcohol, anddye.
The cutter head was usually asingle-resonance system with a resonancefrequency of around 1 kHz, and with theaddition of a lot of dynamic feedback (30 dB
or more), a flat characteristic from 50 Hz to
18 kHz could be obtained relatively easily.
To allow dynamic feedback, the cutter heads
were equipped with sensing coils as well as
driving coils. These sensing coils could not
check the grooves themselves, but obtained
signals from the movement of the cutting

44

stylus, allowing sound quality to be checked
during cutting. Therefore, the technician
would usually listed to this signal during
cutting to check the state of the cutting
system’s operation.
The disk records are essentially limitedby their speed limit as determined by theirrate of rotation and groove diameter. With
regard to the driver of the cutter head, it isnecessary to drive an amplifier with enoughoutput (300 W or greater, with an 8 ohm
conversion in the case of the Neumann SX-74,
which was a typical cutter head) for the speed
limit of the record with the intended rpm andgroove diameter. Another limitation of
cutting systems is that the level is theamplitude of bass signal levels at the cutter
head (± 150 microns in the case of the SX-74).
However, as the maximum amplitude of anormal disk record is approximately ± 50
microns, an amplitude limitation of ± 150
microns is more than sufficient. Whenrecords are cut with a signal close to the
maximum amplitude of the cutter, playing
time is shortened and tracing is difficult,making stable reproduction a challenge.
The preceding paragraph discussed thelimitations of the cutting side; there arelimitations that appear during playback also.
One limitation of reproduction is the
playback stylus’ radius or curvature (e.g. a
16.5-micron spherical stylus). Another is thediameter of the groove, and then there is also
the noise created on the disk during playback.
Figure 5.38 illustrates the limitations(excluding noise) when recording andreproducing (LP) disk records.
The playback limitations are more
noticeable toward the interior, and although
this can be improved by reducing the radiusof curvature of the playback stylus, caution isrequired as this can sometimes damage thegrooves on the disk. Although Fig. 5.38 does
not show noise from the disks as a lower limit,
it is still important to take noise into
consideration, and it is necessary to reduce it
as much as possible by taking other measures,such as improving the materials from which
disks are made.
Figure 5.39 shows the shape of a cutting
stylus.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchVelocity amplitude (cm = sec.) 45° peak

Velocity amplitude (0 dB = reference level)

Speed limit (groove diameter 30 cm)(groove diameter 12 cm)

Frequency (Hz)Fig. 5.38 Disk record recording and playback limitations (with 33 1/3-rpm disks).

Duralumin shank(taper ratio 1:20)

Element(2.8 ± 0.2 Ω）

Stylus tip

Heat-resistant adhesive(cement)

Mirrorsurface

MirrorsurfaceCutting surface

Cross-section B-B

Fig. 5.39 Stereo LP-era cutting stylus shape.
To improve the machinability of thegrooves during cutting, and to reduce noise(by improving the sharpness of the grooves,nichrome wire was wound around the tip ofthe cutting stylus as shown in Fig. 5.39 andheat was applied. In addition, inert gas(helium) injection is widely used to preventthe coils that drive the cutting stylus frombreaking due to oxidation and heat.
Various kinds of playback stylus tip
shapes and their relation to contact area areshown in Fig. 5.40.

45

When cutting lengthy stereo content on adisk record, in order to cut the left signal at
45 degrees and the right signal at minus 45
degrees (or cut the sum of the left and theright horizontally, and the difference
vertically), it is necessary to know the groove
pitch and depth in advance, and set the pitch
Point contact styli

and depth that is most appropriate for thecontent.

Line contact
stylusCutting stylus

0.5 milspherical stylus Elliptical stylus

Front view

S.A.S. stylus

A-A’ section

Shibata stylus

Recordcontact point

Elliptical stylus

Contact area

Fig. 5.40 The relationship between playback stylus tip shape and contact area.

Magnetic recorders/reproducers (see Fig.
5.14 for an example) and digitalrecorders/reproducers (see Fig. 5.23 and 5.29)
used in cutting (mastering) are equipped withan advanced head that enables them to knowwhat kind of signal will come before thecutting signal arrives, sets the pitch (thedistance between grooves) of the cutting lathe,
and also sets the average depth of the grooveby regulating the vertical controller part ofthe cutter head. If the average pitch is too
narrow, then the groove will come into
contact with the adjacent groove, causing
sound from the adjacent groove to be heard;
and if it is too wide, then extended recording
becomes impossible. Moreover, if the average
depth is too shallow, then the groove will be
broken and the playback stylus sill not beable to track the groove properly during
playback; and if it is too deep, then extended
recording becomes impossible, and in
extreme cases the groove will reach thealuminum core of the lacquer disk, damaging
the cutting stylus. Extended recording also
becomes difficult if there is a large difference
in bass between the left and the right signals,
so elliptical equalizers (which control thedifference in bass between the left and theright), etc., are used. Using these equalizers

46

has the merit of allowing records to be playedback with old monaural cartridges, to acertain extent.
Althoughcutterheads
areaninconspicuous technology as compared withcartridges, rarely being noticed, they are oneof the fundamental technologies that support
analog disk records, and, as described in 4.3,
their foundation was laid during disk recorderdevelopment prior to WWII.
Some typical cutter heads and cutting
machines will be presented in the following
paragraphs.
The four cutter heads shown in Fig. 5.41 to
5.44 are typical cutter heads from the end of
the SP era, through to the early stages of the
LP and stereo era. Blumlein’s cutter head
used permanent magnets and electromagnets,
and was enormous, as can be seen bycomparing it with the Neumann SX-74 (Fig.
5.41), which was the most widely used cutter
head when stereo was thriving.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchFig. 5.45 Denmark Ortofon cutter head.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Fig. 5.41 Blumlein’s cutter head (an SX-74 isshown on the left for reference). (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.42 DENON C-28-G cutter head.
(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.46 Westrex 3D cutter head. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.47 Neumann SX-74 cutter head.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Fig. 5.43 A Fairchild cutter head. (Nippon
Columbia Co., Ltd.)

Figure 5.48 shows a Scully (USA)cutting lathe and its components as an
example of a cutting lathe (cutting machine)
equipped with the cutter head shown above.

Fig. 5.44 Neumann SX-45 cutter head.
(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)A number of different cutter heads madeby various companies during the golden ageof stereo LPs are shown in Fig. 5.45 to 5.47.

47

A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
K

Microscope
Microscope light
Turntable
Vacuum suction pipe
Cutting head
Depth adjustment
Light standCutting head dash pot
Cutting head connector
Sled

L
M
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U

Level adjustment screw
Push button controls
Carriage handle
Recorder baseFeed nut adjustment
Carriage stop position selector
Groove scale
Groove pitch adjustment
Lead screw/handle

Fig. 5.48 Components of a Scully cutting lathe from the US.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Figure 5.49 shows a wax disk-era cutting
lathe made by Denon.

Fig. 5.50 DENON cutting lathe made circa
1956.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.49 Wax disk-era cutting lathe made by
Denon.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)

Figure 5.51 shows a Lyrec cutting lathe
with an Ortofon cutter head (both Danish).

Figure 5.50 shows a cutting lathe fromaround 1956 made by Denon.

48

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchintroduced, direct-drive turntables for cutting
machines also appeared. A Denon
direct-drive motor is shown in Fig. 5.54.

Fig. 5.51 Lyrec cutting lathe and Ortofon
cutting head.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Figure 5.52 shows a Scully (USA)cutting lathe with a Westrex 3D cutter head.

Fig. 5.54 Direct drive motor for DENON
cutting machine.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Figure 5.55 shows an example of a
cutting machine used in the present day.

Fig. 5.52 Scully cutting lathe with a Westrex
3D cutter head.
(Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.)
Figure 5.53 shows a Neumann(Germany) cutting lathe with a Neumann
SX-74 cutter head.

Fig. 5.53 Neumann cutting lathe and SX-74
cutter head. (Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)

Fig. 5.55 Configuration of one of the latest
cutting machines.
(Nippon Colombia Co., Ltd.)
Behind the cutting machine is a tankcontaining helium for cooling the coils in the
cutter head. The helium tube passes through aflow meter on the right-hand edge, through an
opening in the front of the SX74 cutter head,
and injects helium over the coils. Lacquer
disks placed on the turntable are held onto it
by means of suction from the pipe in thecenter and holes in the top of the turntable.
The pickup beyond the turntable is used forcorrection and checking the sound quality,
etc., and the Denon DL-103 cartridge (shownin Fig. 4.12 and 4.13) is still used to this day.
The microscope to the left of the turntable isused to check groove geometry and cutting
state.

When
direct-drive
turntables
for
consumer record players began to be49

5.2 Standardization
Recording/Playback
Characteristics

ofEqualizer

As described above, there exists an upper
limit to the speed of disk records that isdetermined by their rate of rotation andgroove diameter, and an upper limit to theamplitude of the signal that depends on theability of the cutter head and the playbackhead to trace it. There are also limitations on
playback that are determined by the radius ofcurvature of the playback stylus and thediameter of the groove on the record. In
addition to these upper limits, there are also
lower limits, such as the noise on the disk
itself. In many places there were attempts tointroduce equalization curves that were
optimally suited to music reproduction thattook these limitations and also the frequency
distribution of the content into consideration.
The frequency distribution level of signals
was therefore measured for types of content,such as such orchestral music, etc., that it wasthought would require an exceedingly large
dynamic range. Unfortunately, this hard work
did not bear fruit during the era ofelectrically-recorded SP records, and theseequalization curves were not able to be
standardized. As the various companies
adopted different equalization curves after the
introduction of LP records, records players
were equipped with at least 11 different
equalization curves, which had to be selectedwith a switch according to the record (thevarious labels). This problem was solved
when an equalization curve was standardizedin the form of the RIAA curve in February
1954 by the Recording Industry Associationof America® (RIAA). The same curve wasalso adopted by the IEC, and it was later
revised in 1976. The RIAA and IEC
equalization characteristics are shown in
Tables 5.5 and 5.6 respectively.

Table 5.5 RIAA equalization characteristic(1954).
RIAA Recording/Playback Characteristic
Frequency
Recording
Playback(Hz)
Characteristic (dB) Characteristic (dB)

Table 5.6 IEC equalization characteristic(amended 1976).
IEC Recording/Playback Characteristics
Frequency Recording Characteristic (dB) Playback Characteristic (dB)Coarse groove Fine groove Coarse groove Fine groove(Hz)

The IEC standard shown in Table 5.6
includes the equalization curves for SP
records (the “Coarse Groove” columns), The
LP columns (Fine Groove) in Tables 5.5 and5.6 differ because the frequencies set by the
RIAA and the IEC are different. It is widely
known that humans perceive the difference in50

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchpitch between 100 Hz and 200 Hz to be theequivalent of the difference between 1 kHz
and 2 kHz and not 1 kHz and 1.1 kHz. As thiscorresponds with frequencies expressed
logarithmically, even though the frequencies
specified as standard frequencies are chosendifferently in the bass range, they are mostly
chosen evenly from the logarithmic axis. As
the characteristic can deviate on the recording
system or the playback system at higher
frequencies, both the RIAA and IEC specify
higher frequencies more closely. These
equalization curves are designed toeffectively utilize the dynamic range of disk
records that exists between the upper limits
imposed by speed and amplitude and thelower limits imposed by noise levels (causedby the disk materials).
To decide on these levels, it is necessary
to consider the sound pressure levels and thefrequency distribution of the sound source inquestion. Note that these equalization curves
were established with the sound pressure andfrequency distribution of a front-row seat at afull orchestra performance in a concert hall(where especially high sound pressure levels
are needed) in mind. The results of Bell
Laboratories’ pre-WWII research (completedwith the cooperation of the famous conductor
Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia
Orchestra) live on in the form of theseequalization characteristics.
When changing the recording media
from records to cassette tapes and CDs,
different equalization characteristics are
required. Cassette tapes actually need adifferent equalization curve, and CDs have asimpleequalization
curve
called“pre-emphasis” for people who want to use it;this is set on or off on the CD itself, and ade-emphasis circuit automatically removes
the emphasis when the CD is played back.
As described above, equalizers foranalog records were standardized for thefrequency distribution of orchestral music,
but analog record cutting engineers are vexedby music and sound effects that have acompletely different frequency distribution
from western orchestral music. One such typeof sound is the sound made by insects, forexample, the chirping of katydids. In
Japanese traditional music is one type ofmusic in which there are instruments that
producesoundsthat
containsuchhigh-frequency components. The frequency
distribution of such music is skewed to thetreble region, and includes variations in
amplitude (amplitude modulation) and slightvariations
infrequency(frequency
modulation) in the treble range. If
nonlinearity (which is the primary cause of
distortion at higher frequencies) exists, thenthe small amplitude and frequency variationsin the bass that were inaudible in the original
sound become audible, and if this isemphasized by the equalization curve (whichraises the bass), then the resulting sound will
not remotely resemble the chirping of akatydid. Such phenomena occur when theband is widened unnecessarily and the signal
is transmitted with uncontrolled bands(nonlinear bands), therefore it is important inall cases to restrict the signal to manageable
transmission bands.

5.3 Frequency Sweep Records and
Disk Record Calibration
The systemsofrecordingandreproduction can generally be divided into
entities such as record companies (which
record sound) and households (which
reproduce it), with both parties having thesame point of contact: disk records.
Special records, called frequency sweep
records or test records, are used to manage
the characteristic of the playback system atthis point of contact. To make frequency
sweep records, it is first critical to establish
methods of measuring the grooves, and thenit is necessary to accurately measure groove
displacement/shape, wavelength and cutting
direction, etc., using methods such as thoseshown in Table 5.7.

51

Table 5.7 Methods of measuring grooves
on records.
i) Light pattern methodii) Light pattern method using interference(B-line technique)iii) Variable speed methodiv) Methods using interference microscopesv) Methods using electron microscopes
Optical microscopes are installed on
cutting machines for inspecting the sides andthe bottoms of the grooves for damage, andfor checking the approximate size andspacing of the grooves. These microscopes
are used whenever a disk is cut.
The Buchmann-Meyer light pattern
method that was invented in 1930 was themost widely used method used for measuring
the amplitude and velocity of the groove
during cutting without physical contact. Thismethod takes advantage of the fact that thewidth of the reflection of a beam of light
projected onto the face of the groove directly
corresponds with the velocity amplitude of
the signal being recorded. With the lightpattern method, the recording wavelength
shortens as the signal frequency increases,
causing the reflected light to scatter, andmaking measurement of a well-defined bandof reflected light more difficult. The lightpattern method offsets this weakness with afringe pattern, an improvement introduced byBuer in 1955. On the other hand, if the signal
frequency decreases, then it becomes difficult
to cut a fixed velocity amplitude due to theamplitude limitations of the cutter head, so
measurement accuracy using the light pattern
method decreases as velocity amplitudedecreases. The variable speed method, which
varies the playback speed and calibrates thelevels of different frequencies, is an effectivemeans of ensuring accuracy under suchconditions. Although absolute calibration is
impossible with this method, it is possible toeasily carry out calibration and ensure goodprecision to the extent that pickup remains
linear.
Methods using interference microscopes
work by observing the grooves under a directinterference microscope and determining thegroove displacement, shape, and amplitude
from the shape and spacing of the52interference pattern. These methods generally
used a light source with a wavelength of
0.546 microns, and the spacing in theinterference pattern corresponds to half of
this, or 0.273 microns.
When observing a JIS reference level 1
kHz sine wave, the theoretical displacementof the groove face (peak-to-peak) is 11.26
microns, allowing approximately 0.1 dB ofaccuracy (supposing a margin of error of50%). Crosstalk could be measured to withinapproximately −38 dB, and accuracy can be
improved by raising recording levels.
Measurement techniques that use electron
microscopy have become an indispensable
method of observing the vertical andhorizontal cutting angles, the characteristicsof the stylus, and the finish from theelectroplating stage. When frequency records
are actually made, a number of methods areused in combination instead of relying on asingle method. Table 5.8 shows the mainthings frequency records are used to measurein playback systems.
Table 5.8 Main items measured whenchecking playback using a frequency sweep
test record.
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
(g)
(h)
(i)
(j)
(k)
(l)
(m)

Sensibility (reference level)
Frequency characteristic (ultra-low,
audible, ultra-high)Playback loss
CrosstalkDistortion (harmonic distortion,intermodulation distortion, etc.)
Wow/flutter
S/N ratio (blank groove)
Electrical impedance
Mechanical impedance
Vertical tracking angle
Phase characteristic (between 2 channels)
Delay characteristics
Transient characteristics

Table 5.9 lists examples of well-known
pre-1975 frequency sweep records that werecapable of measuring most of the items listed
in the table above.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchTable 5.9 Main frequency records and their content.
Company

Record No.

Audio Fidelity

XMS-100AF

Capitol

LF-1002

CBS

STR-100

CBS
CBS
CBS
CBS
CBS
CBS
Clarkstan
Clarkstan
Command

STR-110
STR-120
STR-130
STR-140
BTR-150
STR-101
WR J-105R
WR J-103L
SC-1

Main Content
Frequency range (30–15 kHz spot), low-frequency
resonance (70–15 Hz) demo music
Demo music
Frequency range (40–20 kHz sweep), low-frequency
resonance (200–10 Hz)
Transients, intermodulation distortion
Frequency range (10–500–50 kHz sweep) playback loss
Frequency range (40–20 kHz sweep) RIAA
1/3Oct pink noise (30–15 kHz) RIAA
Broadcast standard text codes
Test record for better listening
Frequency range (70–15 kHz sweep)

PaciﬁcTransducer
Shure
Stereo Review
Stereo Review

Frequency range, wow/flutter, balance, demo music
Frequency range (60–10kHz, spot), wow/flutter, S/N,
PTX-10
trackability
STR-103 、 Frequency range (30–15kHz spot), wow/flutter, crosstalk105
TTR-101
Frequency range, phase test
SR-12
Trackability
MODEL-211 Frequency range (20–20 kHz) wow/flutter, S/N trackability

B&K
Decca
DIN
DIN

QR-2009
T22-222
45541
45542

DIN

45543

DIN
DIN
EMI
EMI
HiFi STEREOTEST
HiFi STEREO
TEST
LondonLondonTELEFUNKENTELEFUNKEN

45544
45545
TCS-101
TCS-105

SLC-1107
SLC-1650
TST-72212
TST-72213

Sound, music explanations
Frequency range (20–20 kHz), phase, rumble, crosstalk
Frequency range (40–12 kHz spot)
Test record for better listening

Audio Technica
Toshiba EMI
Toshiba EMI
JVC

AT-6601
LF-1003
LF-9001
TRS-1001

JVC

TRS-1002

JVC
JVC

TRS-1003
TRS-1004

JVC

TRS-1005

JVC

TRS-1

Frequency range (60–12 kHz spot)
Measurement of groove alignment variation
Frequency range, wow/flutter, arm resonance, trackability
Frequency range, wow/flutter, S/N (monaural)
Frequency range (20–1 kHz, sweep, spot), S/N, transients,
music
Frequency range (30–15 kHz spot), wow/flutter, S/N
Frequency range (30–15 kHz spot)
Frequency range (1K–50 kHz sweep), spot, 50 k, 40 k, 30
k, 20 kHz
CD-4 cartridge check, spot, 40 k, 30 k, 20 k, 10 kHz,crosstalkConcert Disk NAB

No1
No2

Frequency range, wow/flutter, S/N channel balance
Frequency range (20–20 kHz)
Demo music
Frequency range (31.5–20 kHz sweep/spot), low-frequency
resonance (5–125 Hz)
Vertical tracking angle test / intermodulation distortion
Crosstalk measurement
Rumble measurement
Wow/flutter measurement
Frequency range (30–20 kHz spot)
Frequency range (30–20 kHz spot) vertical

53

Nippon Colombia

XL-7001

Nippon Colombia

XL-7002

Nippon Colombia

XL-7003

Frequency range (1K–50 kHz sweep), Frequency range(30–15 kHz spot)
Frequency range (20–20 kHz sweep), low-frequency
resonance (4–100 Hz), S/N, wow/flutter, differences insound according to microphone type, position, playback
conditions, etc.
Changes in music (frequency range crosstalk, wow/flutter,distortion, dynamic range)

In Japan, the reference levels on disk
records are specified by JIS and are therefore
not named in a confusing manner, but in othercountries, the reference levels andnomenclature are different. Some examples

are given in Table 5.10. It goes without
saying that when using frequency records
with non-JIS reference levels that the levels
must be converted at the time of
measurement.

Table 5.10 1 kHz reference levels and differences in labeling.

Displayed
Level
StereoSingle channel
conversion
Peak

JIS
Stereo Reference
RecordJIS C-5514

NAB
TEST
RECORD

DIN
CBS-Lab.
FREQUENZ-MESSTESTSCHALLPLATTERECORD45541
STR-100
MonauralStereo (eachHorizontal
Horizontal
Horizontal(horizontal
channel)direction
direction
direction
direction)
5 cm/sec.·peak
50 mm/sec.·peak 7 cm/sec.·peak 8 cm/sec.·peak
10 cm/sec.·peak
3.54 cm/sec.

5 cm/sec.

5.4 Developmentof
Cutting
Technology
andDistortion
Reduction
through
Playback
Distortion Compensation

Efforts to compensate for tracing
distortion (caused by the difference in shape
between cutting and playback styli) bycreating an inverted signal to correct the
playback distortion and adding it to the
cutting signal were undertaken by companies
such as RCA, Telefunken, Nippon Columbia
and Toshiba EMI during the period between
the mid-1960s and early 1970s, Some
examples of this effect are shown in Fig. 5.56
to 5.59.

54

8 cm/sec.

7 cm/sec.

Lower band distortion rate
due to intermodulation
distortion

5 cm/sec.

200 Hz, left channel
Rotation speed: 33 1/3 rpm
Velocity amplitude: 35 mm/sec. 45°
Stylus tip radius: 0.65 mm (DL-103)

No distortion compensation
Conventional record playback

Playback with distortion compensation

Groove position diameter (cm)Fig. 5.56 The effect of playback
distortion compensation (signal frequency
200 Hz, left channel).

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchLower band distortion rate
due to intermodulation
distortion

200 Hz, right channel
RPM: 33 1/3 rpm
Velocity amplitude: 35mm/sec. 45°
Stylus tip radius: 0.65 mm (DL-103)

No distortion compensation
Conventional record playback
Playback with distortion compensation

Groove position diameter (cm)obvious. It is common knowledge that
playback distortion is caused by thedifference in shape between recording andplayback styli, and that the improvement
gained by using an elliptical stylus is highlyvariable, as illustrated in Fig. 5.60.
Secondary harmonic
distortion rate

5k.Hi., left channel
Rotation speed: 33 1/3 rpm
Velocity amplitude: 35mm/sec. 45°
Stylus tip radius: 0.65 mm (DL-103)
Playback stylus: (0.3 mm × 0.7 mm)

Fig. 5.57 The effect of playback distortioncompensation (signal frequency 200 Hz, rightchannel)No distortion compensation
Conventional record playback using elliptical stylus

Secondary harmonic
distortion rate

Groove position diameter (cm)
5 kHz, left channel
Rotation speed: 331/3 rpm
Velocity amplitude: 35 mm/sec. 45°
Stylus tip radius: 0.65 mm (DL-103)

No distortion compensation
Conventional record playback

Playback with distortion compensation

Groove position diameter (cm)Fig. 5.58 Playback distortion compensation(signal frequency 5 kHz, left channel)
Secondary harmonic
distortion rate

5 kHz, right channel
Rotation speed: 331/3 rpm
Velocity amplitude: 35 mm/sec. 45°
Stylus tip radius: 0.65 mm (DL-103)

No distortion compensation
Conventional record playback

Playback with distortion compensation

Groove position diameter (cm)Fig. 5.59 The effect of playback distortioncompensation (signal frequency 5 kHz, rightchannel)The effects shown above were obtainedby calculating the playback distortion for aspherical stylus, creating a invertedcompensation signal, cutting the disk, andreproducing the sound with a spherical stylus.
That the correction is a great improvement isPlayback of record with distortioncompensation (Fig. 5.47) using
elliptical stylus

Fig. 5.60 The effect of playback distortioncompensation (signal frequency 200 Hz, rightchannel) compared with carrying out
playback distortion compensation on aconventional record using an elliptical stylus.
The graph above clearly shows thatplaying the record with an elliptical stylus
produced nearly as much distortion as aspherical stylus without compensation. The
state of the industry was such that if all of theplayback styli were spherical, then a great
deal of the distortion could be compensatedfor; but when elliptical styli, which arenarrower than spherical ones, began to be
sold in the latter half if the 1960s, the audio
maniacs jumped on them immediately.
Thanks to this audio mania, the effect of
playback distortion compensation was limited,and it failed to become popular in spite of all
the trouble and effort that had gone into its
development.
Nevertheless, this research into distortioncompensation and stylus geometry has provento be useful. In September 1970, JVC
developed a discrete 4-channel record called
the CD-4. As shown in Fig. 5.61, the sum of
the front and rear signals were recorded in thenormal left and right channels respectively,
and the difference between the front and rearsignals was recorded in the left and rightchannels on a frequency modulated 40 kHz
carrier signal.

55

Sum signal(Ch1 + Ch2)

Sum signal Carrier(Ch3 + Ch4)Modulated signal
Modulated signal(Ch3 ‒ Ch4)
(Ch1 ‒ Ch2)CarrierLeftrecordingsignalRight
recordingsignalGroove rounds
Ag membrane
Lacquer
Al plate

LacquermasterCu
Ni
Ag membrane
Lacquer
Al plate

Ag surfacemask
Lacquer mask

As membrane

Ag surface mask
Ni surface mold

← Inside

Sound
GrooveOutsideNi stamper
Ni surface moldFig. 5.61 CD-4 record signal configuration.

Fig. 5.62 Record master disk process outline.
5.5.1

As CD-4s required low playback
distortion at high frequencies, and as narrowstyli such as the Shibata stylus were being
developed
andintroduced,
distortioncompensation for these narrow styli was also
implemented. Unfortunately, even though theCD-4 brought together all of the latest
technologies, it was short-lived due to a lackof demand for content.
Regarding 4-channel records, it isinteresting to note that (with the exception ofsurround sound for movies on DVD, etc.)
there is the same lack of demand for content
even now (when multi-channel digital audio
is easy to implement and its adoption should
be expected) as there was when Miura et al.
conducted the evaluation experiments
described in Section 5.1.3.

5.5 Improvements

in
RecordManufacturing Technology andRecord Materials

Figure 5.62 provides a rough outline ofthe process of manufacturing a master disk,
from lacquer disk to stamper.
The evolution of this process and thematerials used will be explained below.

56

Attempts to Make the Master Disk
Conductive
Master disks were made by the methods
described in the following paragraphs.
Montan wax, beeswax, and vegetable wax
were melted together in a suitable ratio andpoured into a mold to make a wax disk. The
cooled wax disk was smoothed on a lathe to a
thickness of 30 mm and was used forrecording, Wax disks lacked electricalconductivity and needed to be treated, so
methods such as brushing on graphite orembedding a copper wire in the periphery ofthe disk were used to give the disk
conductivity before electroplating. However,the size of the graphite crystals or damage
caused by the brush during application could
cause surface noise problems because thesmoothness of the record face could not be
guaranteed. The graphite process to add
conductivity was replaced by a gold
sputtering process developed by Bell
Laboratories in the late 1930s. This method
was not perfect either: the wax disks, lacking
homogeneity, would degas in the vacuum,
causing the gold vapor to be depositedunevenly. Another problem was the excessive
temperatures at the disk face during vapor
deposition, which would reach 80°C to
100°C.
Such were the conditions when lacquer
disks appeared. However, as with wax disks,
when it came to depositing a gold layer onthem, the problem of plasticizers and residual
solvents evaporating from the master due tothe heat of vacuum sputtering remained
unsolved, and silver and copper sputtering did
not offer any improvement. Furthermore,

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchsputtering equipment
wasapparently
expensive at the time. One might suppose that
this state of affairs prevented sputtering frombecoming popular, and led to the transition tosilvering.
5.5.2 Silvering Lacquers
Although silvering was already being
used to coat glass mirrors long before it wasused to make master disks conductive, it
wasn’t until around 1950 that it began to be
applied to lacquer disks. Table 5.11 shows anexample of a silvering solution and areducing solution used for silvering lacquer
disks.
Table 5.11 An example of a silvering solution
and a reducing solution used for silveringlacquer disks to provide conductivity.
Silver solution

Reducing
solution

Silver nitrate
5 gms
Water
600 mLAmmonia water As required
Formalin
9 mL
solution
Water
100 mLThe 1950s saw the introduction ofspraying methods, and the process graduallycame to be automated.
An example of an actual process would
be as follows: A lacquer disk would be
mounted on a turntable and rotated, and thenit would be rinsed, washed with a cleaning
fluid, rinsed, sensitized with stannous
chloride, rinsed, sprayed with silver solution,and rinsed again. These processes were on
timers, with many records being processed inparallel automatically.
5.5.3

Making Masters, Mothers, andStampers
Electrotyping is used to precisely
reproduce the microscopic grooves found on
lacquers.
Fundamentally
similartoelectroplating, this method enables an exact
duplicate of a matrix to be produced byelectrically depositing metal (nickel) onto thematrix until it reaches the required thickness,after which it is detached. This requires thecreation of an atomically-thin metal oxide
layer on the surface to serve as a release liner
to allow the deposited metal to be detached, aprocess using anodizing which is referred toas “passivation.” Electrotyping allows things
that are impossible to machine or difficult toprocess to be duplicated with great precision,
Sub-micron tolerances are said to be possible.
First, the master disk is electroplated withnickel using a Watts bath. A typical exampleof the solution used in a Watts bath is shownin Table 5.12.
Table 5.12 Watts bath solution and operation
conditions (example).
Nickel sulfate
250–350 g/L
Nickel chloride
15–45 g/L
Boric acid30 g/LpH
3.0–4.0
Solution
40–60°C
temperature
2
Current density
15–30 A/dm
Electroplating is carried out at a current density of2
10–25 A/dm for approximately 1 hour to produce
a layer 0.05 mm thick.

After nickel plating, copper electrotyping
is performed. Copper electrotype has a long
history, having been used for electrotype
printing plates, etc., since the 19th century.
Copper electrotypes have less internal stressthan electrotypes made using other metals,
and are quite appropriate. However, copper
stampers required enough strength andflexibility to withstand the stress of pressing
records in LP manufacturing. Attempts weremade at nickel electrotyping, but the greatinternal stresses hindered progress. Then,
shortly before the outbreak of World War II,
an electrotyping process using nickel
sulfamate that produced very little internal
stress was developed in the United States.
Table 5.13 gives an example of thecomposition of a nickel sulfamate bath.
Table 5.13 Nickel sulfamate solution
composition and operating conditions(example).
Nickel sulfamate
Boric acid
pH
Solution temperature
Current density

350–450 g/L
300 g/L
3.0–4.040–60°C2
15–30 A/dm

Under these conditions, approximately
0.2 mm of nickel would be deposited over thecourse of one to two hours, and after chrome57

plating, the back of the disk would be sanded
and the disk finished to facilitate pressing.
By the end of the 1950s, electrotyping
was being used to make not only stampers,
but mothers as well. Nickel masters andnickel mothers became widespread, and arestill used to this day.
Today, analog record manufacturing has
dwindled, continuing only as small-scale
production in a few countries, having been
replaced by CD and DVD manufacturing.
The manufacturing process for CDs,
LaserDiscs and DVDs is similar to that foranalog records, and the same technology isused. Without electrotyping technology, themass production of LaserDiscs, CDs andDVDs, would be impossible. Master disk andstamper manufacture involves many aspectsof electrotyping technology, such as
rendering the matrix conductive, separating
the electrotype from the matrix, uniform
deposition, managing stresses in theelectrotype caused by plating conditions, suchas current density, and considering thephysical and mechanical properties of themetal used (nickel), each of which demands ahigh level of technology.
5.5.4

Changes in the Record
Manufacturing Process
SP records were manufactured from 1910
until 1959. Until 1928, single-sided (solid)
records were manufactured, and from 1929
until 1959, double-sided laminated records
made from surface and core materials withsuperior sound quality, wear resistance, andnoise levels were manufactured. Both types
had an overflow attached to the edge of therecord, which would be trimmed off with acutter.
In Japan, manufacturing of LPs wascommenced in 1951, and EP manufacturing
began in 1954.
It was in 1951 that Nippon Columbia
released the first Japanese vinyl LP record:
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor, op.
125 “Choral” conducted by Bruno Walterwith the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
This record (shown in Fig. 5.63) is registered
as one of the Essential Historical Materials
for Science and Technology by the National
Museum of Nature and Science as the “FirstJapanese-made vinyl LP record” (No. 00097).

58

Fig. 5.63 The first Japanese vinyl LP record.
EP records were designed with
autochangers in mind and were called “donut
disks” because of the large hole in the center.
The first Japanese EP record was released in
1954 by JVC, and featured “Blue Canary”
sung by Dinah Shore.
LP and EP records were made fromdifferent materials from SP records (being
made from a vinyl resin base) and solved
many of the drawbacks of SP records, having
low surface noise, excellent durability, lightweight,toughness,highfidelity
characteristics, and coming in many colors.
At first, Japanese records were pressedfrom imported biscuit-shaped material fromthe United States, but efforts were made todomesticate vinyl chloride resin production
and this finally became possible in 1956.
Disk records go through many stages
such as pressing, preheating, extrusion,pressing,
packaging,
previewing
andinspection, which includes passing through an
automatic noise detection unit. In 1965, someEP records were made using injection
molding.
5.5.5 Changes in Record Materials
Wax disks were used for recording SP
records until around 1951, after which they
were replaced by acetate disks. Shellac
remained the dominant record material forover fifty years after Emile Berliner firstthought of using it, only being superseded
when the LP record was invented in 1948.
Shellac is a natural resin secreted by the lac
insect (a kind of scale insect) that is producedin places such as India and Thailand. Shellac
was mixed with natural resins such as rosinand copal, fillers such as clay and baryte, andcarbon black, and was kneaded using a

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. Marchheating roller. Early solid SP records mainly
used shellac. Later laminated records also
used shellac as the main surface material.
Double-sided lacquer disks (aluminum
disks coated with nitrocellulose lacquer;
sometimes called “acetates”) were used torecord LPs and EPs. These disks were
supplied by the US companies Transco andCapitol Audio Disk for many years.
Regarding LP and EP disk materials,
Union Carbide Plastics Co. researchedmaterials for records for over 20 years
beginning in 1930, and perfected a vinyl
chloride/vinyl acetate copolymer for LP and
EP records. This material was developed withthe aim of using it in the same presses used
for pressing 78-rpm shellac records.
This
copolymer
displayed
betterworkability than other plastics during
pressing, and other advantages included ashorter pressing time, excellent mechanicalstrength and abrasion resistance, minimal lossof high frequencies, and excellent acoustic
characteristics.
Generally, adding plasticizers to vinyl
records proportionally increases theirsusceptibility to temperature, groove wear,
and sound quality deterioration at highfrequencies. The PVC must therefore not use
plasticizers, but still have good plasticity.
Records are made with a rigid PVC resin, anda copolymer with a relatively low degree ofpolymerization and a high copolymerization
ratio is used. A rigid PVC composition
contains stabilizers, fillers, lubricants andcolorants; these are mixed uniformly in thekneading process and compacted to makevinyl records.
One kind of vinyl resin for records thatwas well known around the world was
Vinylite VYHH-3, a copolymer resin madeby the Bakelite Company that contained 87%
vinyl chloride and 13% vinyl acetate. This
resin used to be imported into Japan. Japanbegan to develop rigid vinyl for records
around 1950, with Zeon Corporation,
Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., Ltd., Kaneka
Corporation and others beginning to supply
vinyl from around 1956.
An example of the composition of the
Bakelite Company’s VYHH-3 is shown in
Table 5.14, and the composition of Zeon

Corporation’s 400X150P is shown in Table
5.15.
Table 5.14 Composition of LP or EP records
containing VYHH-3 (example)
For black records

For red records

VYHH-3
DS-207
Carbon black
VYHH-3
DS-207
Oil red dye

97.5%
1.5%
1.0%
98.4%
1.5%
0.1%

Table 5.15 Composition of records containing
Zeon Corporation’s 400X150P.
For black records

For red records

For transparent
records

400 x 150 P
Dibasic lead
stearate
Carbon black
400 x 150 P
Dibasic lead
stearate
Oil red die

100%

400 x 150 P

100%

Organic tin
stabilizer
Transparent
colorant

1.5–
2.0%

1.5%
1.0%
100%
1.5%
0.5%

A little

The process of making records with astamper and the materials described above isknown as molding. Methods of pressing canbe generally classified into pressing andinjection molding. Twelve-inch and 10-inchrecords are usually made with the firstprocess, and CDs and 17-cm records with thesecond.
It is widely known that molding
conditions have a great effect on
manufacturing efficiency, characteristics, andsound quality. Record companies work tofind the optimal conditions and treat thisinformation as a trade secret, so there is notmuch information available on this subject.
During the pressing process, the nickel
and chrome stampers are mounted on thepress, preheating is applied, the labels andmaterials are added, and heat and pressure areapplied to ensure the materials spread evenly.
Then, the record is cooled to finish theprocess. Manufacturing efficiency would be
increased if the preheating, heating, pressure,and cooling stages were shortened, but thismay increase the number of disks where thegrooves are not faithfully reproduced, or59where noise is increased. The pressing
characteristics of the material also change if
composition is changed.
Table 5.16 lists conditions that can affectthe pressing cycle.
Table 5.16 Conditions that can affect thepressing cycle.
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
(6)
(6)-1
(6)-2
(6)-3
(6)-4
(6)-5

Record size
Fluidity of materials
Stamper groove shape
Mold structure/thermal conductivity
Molding equipment structure
Molding conditions
Materials
Temperature
Steam pressure
Cooling water temperature/pressure
Press pressure

5.5.6

Special Records

5.5.6.1 Card Records
From the days of SP records, attempts
were made to produce paper records bypressing grooves onto postcards or cards withphotos or paintings. Initially, grooves werepressed onto the surface of printed card paper
directly, but commercial quality was unable
to be achieved due to the noise generated.
Next, grooves were pressed onto card paper
laminated with cellulose acetate film, andsuch records were used to promote tourism(sometimes they contained folk songs), as
well as for other advertising purposes.
However, this type of record had to bepressed one by one in order to prevent
misalignment of artwork and grooves,meaning that there were disadvantages, suchas the difficulty of mass production andinconsistency in terms of sound quality due tothe undulating nature of the surface material.
Playback could also sometimes be affected by
the problem of warping, which was caused bydifferences in constriction rate between thefilm and base paper. Cellulose acetate film
subsequently gave way to vinyl chloride film
and double-sided records with picturesappeared, as mentioned in the following
section.
5.5.6.2 Records with Pictures
Although various methods of production
were developed to produce records withpictures, the main method was to dust paper

60with a printed picture on it with vinyl powder
and then to cut grooves on it. The othermethod was to use photogravure to print a
picture on the back of vinyl acetate film that
had already been punched out in a certain
record size and to have the back of the picture
painted in white to make the picture stand out,
in which case two sheets were placed together
back to back and then pressed in the normalway.
5.5.6.3 Phonosheets
In the fall of 1958, the French record
manufacturer SAIP developed a technologythat made continuous production of records
from thin, flexible vinyl sheet (0.13–0.2 mm
thick) possible using a stamper. These flexi
discs, which were also called phonosheets orsoundsheets, were sometimes included inmagazines. In Japan, the monthly Asahi
Sonorama magazine included them and they
were referred to as “Sonosheets.” Phonosheet
production peaked at 6 million per month
between 1963 and 1965, after which it
declined.
5.5.6.4 Mystery Records
In March 1932, during the era of SP
records, JVC released a record that had
multiple grooves and made different sounds
according to the place where the needle was
dropped. This was called a Mystery Recordand became a topic of conversation at thetime.
5.5.6.5 Sonopic and Panapic
These were non-rotating phonosheet
playback systems that employed a small
moving pickup cartridge with a stylus to playa stationary record engraved on a plastic
patch. Uses ranged from children’s
storybooks to educational material, such as
English conversation.
5.5.6.6 Other Record Formats
Although the main sizes of records
during the SP era were 10-inch (25 cm) and12-inch (30 cm) for SP records, there werealso other sizes on the market, such as 8-inch
and 5-inch records.
Once LP and EP records became more
popular, 12-, 10- and 7-inch records became
the mainstream, but 8-inch, 6.3-inch and3-inch records were also available at the time.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March5.5.6.7 The Filmon
Please refer 2.3.2 of this paper for theunique Japanese Filmon media.

5.6 Playback

Pickup andPlayer Developments

Record

5.6.1 Phonographs
The competition between cylinder
records and disk records continued even after
entering the 20th century. Although Edison
tried to promote cylinder records bydeveloping the cylinder phonograph, he
ended up developing a record player for highquality vertically-cut disk records that could
record vertical high-amplitude signals, whichbrought confusion into this competition,
resulting in the dominance of disk records.
5.6.2 Electric Gramophones
Until 1924, all records had been recorded
acoustically and without electricity. Althoughthat method was suitable for recording vocal
pieces, the lower frequencies of which it isdifficult to capture, it was not suitable forrecording orchestral music. Furthermore, it
seems that the sound quality from the radio(150–1,500 Hz), which was free to listen to,
was better than that of records (300–1,500
Hz). With the commercialization of electricalaudio equipment that utilized vacuum tubes
shortly after they were invented, such as the
microphone, it became possible to record bass
more clearly and electric gramophones grewin popularity. In terms of pickups, the crystal
pickup was gaining attention due to the factthat it was compatible with high-impedance
vacuum tubes, it was not susceptible to mains
hum, and its large output level and relatively
cheaper price.
5.6.3 LP Cartridges
While compact and cheap crystal pickups
contributed to the popularization of LPs, inthe 1950s, specialist audio manufacturers
appeared in the US. The three famous types
were GE variable reluctance (VR) cartridges,
Pickering balanced armature (BA) cartridges
and Fairchild moving coil (MC) cartridges.
Although Japanese cartridges were brought tomarket around the same time, they were
mostly imitations of American products,
except for the STAX CP-20 (Showa

Photo-Acoustic Industries KK), which was acondenser pickup system uniquely andproudly made in Japan and exhibited at thefirst Japanese Audio Fair in 1952. Pickup
oscillation was extremely light and it could
playback LP records with a tracking force of
only 1 g.
5.6.4 Stereo Cartridges
The prototype for the 45/45 stereo disk
recording system was completed by Westrex
Corporation in 1957 and was adopted by the
RIAA as the industry standard (stylus tip of
0.7-1.0 mil radius and vertical force of 6
grams) in March 1958. That same year, stereo
records were released from 19 labels in the
United States, followed by JVC and Nippon
Columbia in Japan. It is no exaggeration to
say that the advent of stereo records caused
the 1960s audio industry boom in the US
followed by the boom in Japan in the 1970s.
In terms of crystal pickups, in 1960 Takeo
Shiga (former director of Nippon Columbia)
invented the “cigar cartridge,” which picks up
stereo signals using a pair of piezoelectric
crystal elements that were cut using aproprietary method. Although crystal
cartridges had the advantage of being lightand cheap, the high impedance required of
the crystal cartridges caused problems when
impedance was lowered with the introductionof transistors into amplifiers, while thelightness of the needle meant that trackability
was poor. So, crystal pickups were only really
popular for the first half of the stereo age,
after which they became obsolete.
5.6.5 VLP Tonearms
When LP records were introduced, heavy
tonearms were still used, such as theoil-damped Gray 108B tonearm, which wasoften used in combination with GE variablereluctance (VR) cartridges. Once stereo
cartridges were introduced, this type of tonearm faded away because such arms rested ona single pivot, which meant that the arm
could move freely to the left and right,
causing crosstalk when combined with stereo
cartridges. Furthermore, due to their highequivalent mass, when combined with stereo
high compliance cartridges the resonant
frequency of these tonearms was reduced toonly a few Hertz, and there was noise during

61

playback due
eccentricity.

torecordwarping

and5.6.6 Stereo Tonearms
Although the oil-damped Gray tonearm
captured the market during the monaural era,
once stereo records were introduced in 1958,
tonearms required a different design where
playback had to be achieved with a low
equivalent mass and light tracking force of 2–
3 g, with the resonant frequency set at around
10 Hz. A mechanism called an inside force
canceler, which cancels the inside force that
occurs due to the centrifugal force produced
when playing records using a light tracking
force, was also adopted on many tonearms. A
mechanism for adjusting the vertical tracking
angle of the cartridge during playback ofstereo records to 15 degrees, the same as the
cutting angle, also came to be used on many
tonearms. Tonearm tracking force adjustment
consisted of statically balanced tonearms anddynamically balanced tonearms, which used aspring.
5.6.7 Turntable Motors
Ordinary shaded-pole induction motors
or permanent-split capacitor motors wereused to drive turntables, while hysteresis
synchronous motors were used forhigh-quality players. Development of idler
drive turntables (also called rim drive
turntables) by The Alliance Manufacturing
Company (the U.S.) in 1938 started the
low-cost record player boom. It is also
worth-mentioning that autochangers for LP
players became popular in Europe and the US,
although they did not catch on in Japan.
5.6.8 Direct Drive Turntable Motors
In the 1960s, although rim drive
turntables were replaced with belt-drive
turntables on account of the improved wow
and flutter, the degree of improvement was
still not sufficient. Around the same time,
servomotors started to be used in various
units. In terms of turntable motors,
Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
announced the technology for the first
direct-drive turntable motor in June 1969,
followed by the introduction of a DC servo
direct-drive
turntable
motor.
NipponColumbia followed suit by releasing an AC
servomotor ahead of other companies that62

released similar products.
Bibliography[1] Fifty Years of Audio History, Japan Audio
Society, Disk records, III Record players,
IV Microphones, (December 1986)[2] Stereo Recorders, Kenji Hayashi, NHK
STRL News, Vol.12, No.11, pp. 12–17(November 1969)[3] Hideaki Hayashi, Atsushi Miyashita,
Koichi Oshinden, Shigeo Todoroki,
Tateaki Anazawa, PCM Recording
Equipment for Disk Record Masters,
Lectures and Collected Papers of The
Acoustical Society of Japan, 3-4-20(October 1972).
[4] Akira Terashima, Kaoru Yamamoto,TateakiAnazawa,
DigitalMastering/Mixing
Consoleand
PCM/Digital Recorders, Broadcasting
Technology, April 1985, pp. 78–84.
[5] Yukio Takahashi, Hiroyuki Yazawa,
Hajime Ishihara, Random Accessing Type
Editing Device DN-036ED, Broadcasting
Technology 35 (1982).
[6] Tateaki Anazawa, Problems Associatedwith Digital Tape Editing, Acoustical
Science and Technology Vol. 39, No. 9(1983) pp. 624–630.
[7] Keisuke Kinoshita/Tomohiro Nakatani(NTT
Communication
ScienceLaboratories),
MasatoMiyoshi(Kanazawa
University),
Subjective
Assessment of Stereo Music Surround
Playback Sound Created Based on the
Principle of Reverberation Rejection,
Lectures and Collected Papers of The
Acoustical Society of Japan, pp. 759-760(September 2009).
[8] Tateaki Anazawa, Frequency Records,
Acoustical Science and Technology Vol.
30, No. 2 (1974).
[9] Non-Distortion
Cutting,
Radio
Technology, November 1970.
[10]
Hideo
Ise,
Electroforming
Technology and Application, Makishoten.
[11]
Hideo Ise, Record Materials andMolding, Vinyls and Polymers Vol. 10,
No. 10.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

6 Changes and Shipment Trends in the Record
Industry and Record Player Industry
6.1 Changes and Shipment Trends inthe Record Industry
The history of the record industry inJapan began in October 1907, when F.W.
Horn Trading Company of Yokohama
established Japan-American Phonograph
Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Kawasaki andcommenced to manufacture disk records andphonographs. Two years later this company
was taken over by Japan Phonograph Trading
Co., Ltd. (one of Horn’s other companies andthe predecessor to today’s Columbia MusicEntertainment, Inc.) and by 1912, monthly
production volumes had jumped to 150,000
units for records and 5,000 units forphonographs.
Although both single- and double-sided
records were being produced at the time,from 1915 onwards, only double-sided
records were produced.
After that, in May 1927, Nippon Polydor
Chikuonki Co., Ltd. was established,followed in September of the same year by
the Victor Talking Machine Company ofJapan, Ltd.
Colombia acquired a controlling interestin the Nipponophone Company, the successor
to The Japan Phonograph Trading Co., Ltd.,and the following year (1928) the firstelectrically-recorded record in Japan was
released by the company, which had beenrenamed Japan Colombia Phonograph.
In 1931, Kodansha, Ltd. established King
Record Co., Ltd. as its music division andTeikoku Gramophone Co., Ltd. (predecessorof Teichiku Entertainment, Inc.) wasestablished in 1934.
In April 1942, the Japan Phonograph
Record Cultural Association (predecessor of

the Recording Industry Association of Japan(RIAJ)) was established.
After the end of the war, record
production commenced once again in October
1945.
Japan’s first 30 cm LP record was
released by Nippon Columbia in 1951, andJapan’s first 17 cm 45-rpm EP record was
released by Victor Company of Japan, Ltd(JVC) three years later in May 1954.
Meanwhile, the aforementioned Japan
Audio Society was established in October
1952.
In August 1958, the first 45/45 stereo
records were manufactured in Japan andwithin a year, all Japanese record companies
were producing them.
As restrictions on foreign capital
investment were lifted in July 1967 as part of
the gradual promotion of foreign investment,in record manufacturing industry it became
possible for foreign companies to hold 50%.
As a result of such measures, Sony
Corporation and Columbia Broadcasting
System, Inc. of the US established CBS-Sony
Record in Japan as a fifty-fifty joint venturein March 1968.
Major events in the history of theJapanese record industry are listed in Table
6.1, while changes in analog record annual
production volumes and annual sales areshown in Fig. 6.1.
As you can see, the annual production
volume for 78-rpm SP records reached 30
million units in 1936, and 94.6 million units
for 30 or 25 cm LP records in 1976 (worth¥12.36 billion), and was in excess of ¥100
million for 17 cm 45-rpm EP records in 1979.

63

Table 6.1 Important events in the history of the Japanese record industry.
1877
1887
1907
1909
1912
1915
1927
1928
1930
1931
1934
1942
1948
1949
1951
1955
1958
1959
1966
1967
1968
1969
1970
1971
1972
1982
1986
1987
1989
1990

64

Cylinder phonograph invented by Thomas Edison.
Flat disk phonograph record and gramophone invented by Emile Berliner.
Japan-American Phonograph Manufacturing Co., Ltd. established. Disk record andphonograph manufacturing commenced.
Japan-American Phonograph Manufacturing Co., Ltd. and Japan Phonograph Trading Co.,
Ltd. (predecessor to today’s Columbia Music Entertainment, Inc.) took over manufacturing
and sales.
Japan Phonograph Trading Co., Ltd. monthly production volume reached 150,000 units forrecords and 5,000 units for phonographs.
Japan Phonograph Trading Co., Ltd. stopped producing single-sided record and focused on
double-sided records.
Nippon Polydor Chikuonki Co., Ltd. and Victor Talking Machine Company of Japan, Ltd. were
established.
First electrically recorded records in Japan released by Japan Colombia Phonograph.
Kodansha, Ltd. established King Record Co., Ltd. as its music division.
RCA Victor US released 33 1/3-rpm long-play (LP) records.
Teikoku Gramophone Co., Ltd. (predecessor of Teichiku Entertainment, Inc.) wasestablished.
Japan Phonograph Record Cultural Association (predecessor of the Recording Industry
Association of Japan) was established.
Columbia Recording Corporation in the US introduced 33 1/3-rpm LP records.
RCA Victor US released 7-inch EP records.
Nippon Colombia released Japan’s first 12-inch LP records.
First successful commercial production of polyvinyl chloride in Japan.
Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) released Japan’s first 45/45 stereo records in August,ahead of any other companies.
Toshiba commenced sales of records with an anti-static agent.
Publication of Asahi Sonorama magazine and Sonosheet sheet records was commenced.
JVC commenced sales of the Philips compact cassette system.
First deregulation of foreign capital investment in Japan (50% foreign capital share allowed inrecord industry). Nippon Columbia released 30 cm 45 rpm records.
CBS-Sony Record Inc. was established with foreign capital of 50%.
Nippon Victor announced 4-channel system (CD-4). Nippon Columbia released record
produced using direct-cutting method.
Nippon Columbia released records produced using non-distortion cutting (playback distortion
adjustment records).
Nippon Columbia released records produced using pulse code modulation (PCM)/digitalrecording. Four-channel matrix systems adopted by other companies in Japan.
Nippon Columbia continued using PCM/digital recording for record production and sales
inside and outside Japan.
Sales of domestically produced CDs commenced by CBS-Sony, Epic/Sony and Columbia in
October.
Licensing of CD rentals commenced. Domestic sales for CDs superseded domestic sales for
30 cm/25 cm LP record.
Sales of DAT made in Japan commenced by Matsushita, Aiwa and Sharp.
Athens Agreement signed (serial copy management system (SCMS adopted).
The Ministry of International Trade and Industry overseas the incorporation of SCMS incommercialization of DAT. First international meeting regarding recording technology held
and introduction of International Standard Recording Code (ISRC) agreed on.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchNumber of records

Disk record production by type (Unit: million records)

45 rpm,
17m

78
rpm

33 rpm, 17m

Showa 5(1930)
Note: (1) Production volume for 78-rpm records is estimated using the volume of material used.
(2) Production volumes between 1943 and 1945 are unknown due to the war.

Fig. 6.1 Annual production volumes and sales for analog records in Japan.
(Source: Recording Industry Association of Japan)
In the mid-1980s, LP and EP record
production volumes dwindled while compact
discs (CDs) took their place. Thisphenomenon can also be observed in the stateof record player sales (Table 6.3).
In terms of analog record imports/exports,
LP record production volumes peaked inJapan in 1976 (Table 6.2).
Table 6.2 Analog record exports/imports.
Exports (number):Approx. 720,000
Imports (number):Approx. 3.6 million

Exports (value):
Approx. ¥430 million
Imports (value):
Approx. ¥2.95 billion

The volume of imported records was fivetimes the volume of exports, while the importvalue was seven times the value of exports.
This figure becomes even greater when thelicensing fee to produce hit records ofoverseas artists in Japan is included. Most of
the exported records were bought byforeigners who appreciated the good soundand quality of Japanese audiophile records,
Japanese who lived overseas and the people
around them. Once digital recording outside
Japan became common practice, thedestinations of record exports were mostly
these countries where such recording was
carried out.
Needless to say, it takes songs, singers,
producers and recording technologies that canhold their own on the world stage to counterthe imbalance caused by excessive imports.
The phenomenon that was ridiculed by
Charles de Gaulle still continues.

6.2 Changes and Shipment Trends inthe Record Player Industry
Although the audio industry can be
categorized into various fields, in the same
way as for records, the starting point foraudio equipment in Japan was theestablishment of Japan-American Phonograph
Manufacturing Co., Ltd. in Kawasaki by F.W.
Horn Trading Company of Yokohama in
October 1907 and the subsequent productionof the first disk records and record players.
By 1912, monthly production volumes had
jumped to 150,000 units for records and
5,000 units for phonographs.
The situation with regard to analog
records and record players is somewhat of a“chicken and egg” relationship, meaning that
it is wholly dependent on the stereo record
player ownership rate. As shown in Table 6.3,
the ownership rate of 3.7% in 1961 gradually
grew to exceed the 30% mark in 1970, thepoint that had been awaited by many
stakeholders, and reached 53.8% in 1976,
when LP record production peaked. First,
non-electric record players gave way toelectric record players, and then came the age

65

of the all-in-one stereo systems that became aprominent part of the consumer electronics
industry. After that, as shown in Fig. 6.2,
all-in-one stereo systems gave way to stereo
record player units with detachable speakers(peaked around 1973 with an ownership rate
at 44.4%), followed by compact 3-piecestereo systems (peaked around 1974 with anownership rate of 46%), component stereo
systems (popular around 1977, 1988 and2001), modular component systems (peakedaround 1979 with an ownership rate of
56.5%), and compact stereo component
systems (peaked around 1984), changing
about every eight (six to ten) years.

In terms of component stereo systems,
however, thanks to constant technologicalinnovation over the last 40 years, supply ofsuch systems has continued right throughoutthat time. Analog record players were
included in such component stereo systems,
even after sales of analog disk records werediscontinued.

Table 6.3 Stereo system/tape recorder ownership trends in Japan (Economic Planning Agency
Consumption and Saving)

66

Month/Year

Farmers

NonFarmers

February 1961
February 1962
February 1963
February 1964
February 1965
February 1966
February 1967
February 1938
February 1969
February 1970
February 1971
February 1972
February 1973
February 1974
February 1975
February 1976
February 1977
February 1978

2.1%
3.4%
5.0%
5.5%
9.2%
13.4%
15.8%
18.6%
21.9%
27.3%
31.5%
35.0%
41.5%
43.7%
46.6%
48.8%

11.3%
17.2%
20.2%
23.5%
27.5%
30.5%
34.6%
37.1%
43.6%
47.0%
49.2%
53.7%
55.4%
56.8%
57.6%

Cities with a
Population of
50,000 or
More
3.7%
7.2%
10.8%
13.4%
23.9%
25.8%
28.9%
32.5%
36.6%
38.7%
43.1%
48.5%
50.4%
55.6%
56.2%
57.9%
57.8%

All
Households

Tape Recorder
Ownership in All
Households

9.0%
13.5%
16.7%
19.8%
24.1%
27.3%
31.2%
33.9%
40.4%
44.4%
47.0%
52.1%
53.8%
64.9%
56.3%

8.7%
14.6%
17.9%
22.5%
24.5%
28.6%
30.8%
33.3%
38.1%
42.1%
47.0%
51.6%
55.9%
56.2%
59.3%

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchComponent stereo systems(amplifier)All-in-one stereo systems
Stereo record player units
with detachable speakers
Modular component systems
Compact stereo component systems
Compact CD player systems
Compact stereo component systems
Total

Year

–Total–Compact 3-piece stereo systems–Compact CD player systems–Compact stereo component systems–Modular component systems–Stereo record player units with detachable speakers–All-in-one stereo systems–Component stereo systems (amplifier)Fig. 6.2 Audio equipment market trends in Japan (1968–1986)
President Charles de Gaulle partly gave
up on the situation regarding France’s export
and import of stereo record players in 1962,
in that in terms of home stereo system
imports/exports, unlike the situation withanalog records, in 1963, exports, at 600,000
units, were 20 times higher than imports,
which amounted to 30,000 units.
After CD records became well-acceptedby the general public, radio cassette player
with CD players hit the market, peaking
around 1988, followed by smaller compact
stereo component systems and even smaller
micro stereo component systems, whichpeaked around 1995, before we entered theage of the Internet and online music.

Bibliography[1] Recording Industry Association of Japan– A 50-year History of a Cultural Industry,
published on March 1, 1993 by the
Recording Industry Association of Japan.
[2] The Record Industry in Japan, 2013
Edition, published in April 2013 by the
Recording Industry Association of Japan.
[3] Economic Planning Agency, Consumption
and Saving Trends.
[4] Ministry of International Trade andIndustry, Statistics Department, Customs
Clearance Records, Electronic Industries
Association of Japan shipment records,
etc.

67

7 Audio Record-Related Standards/Codes
Audio records are marketed throughout
the world and as such must be able to be
replayed on any record player in the world.
Therefore, standards and codes to ensurecompatibility and to make that a reality are
essential. They must also eliminate thepossibility of entry barriers.
In terms of standards, there areinternational standards set by internationalorganizations, domestic standards set bygovernments, and industry standards set byindustry organizations. In order to ensure
worldwide compatibility in the analog disk
record market and to facilitate international
trade, the establishment of such standards isnecessary. In Japan, MITI (the Ministry of
Economy, Trade and Industry (METI)), theAgency of Industrial Science and Technology(predecessor of the National Institute ofAdvanced Industrial Science and Technology(AIST)), the hardware industry and the record
industry were all actively engaged indeveloping these standards and made it
possible for the audio industry – especiallythe hardware industry – to flourish. However,in the case of the record industry in Japan,
even though there are no problems in terms ofcompatibility, exports from Japan are still
almost non-existent as the industry is still
unable to shake off the problem of a lack ofcontent.
The outline of codes for analog disk
records is explained as follows.

7.1 International Standard Recording
Code
Systemand
RelatedInternational,
DomesticandIndustry Codes Concerning Analog
Recordrecordings, are set by the International
Standardization Organization (ISO), which
also has its headquarters in Geneva. JapaneseIndustrial Standards (JIS) are set inaccordance with the ISRC for analog disk
records. Industry organizations, such as RIAJ,
determine standards regarding labeling
content and format, as well as packaging
jackets and accessories, in order to ensurethat products are produced in accordance withboth JIS and international standards and JIS,
product distribution and is carried out in a
streamlined manner and to avoid confusion in
the marketplace. However, such standards do
not prohibit the use of non-standard types for
specific uses. Furthermore, there are cases
where an industry organization setsadministrative
regulations
for
information-related standards.
Analog record standards are shown in
Table 7.1.
Table 7.1 Analog Record standards.
Analog Record Standards:
International IEC 60098 Analog Audio Disk
Records and Reproducing
Equipment
Japanese
JIS Standards
Industry
RIAJ Standards:
RIS202
Analog disk record labeling
content and format
RIS201
Disk record jackets andaccessories

Such analog record standards are theresult of efforts made by the industry as awhole over many years to prevent confusionand ensure compatibility.
ISRC-related standards are shown in
Table 7.2.

Due to the connection with electricity,international standards for analog disk
records are established by the International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), which
has its headquarters in Geneva. Standards
such as the International Standard Recording
Code (ISRC), which is an international
standard code for identifying sound68

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchTable 7.2 ISRC-related standards.

Table 7.3 Audio cassette tape standards.

ISRC-related Standards:
International: ISO 3901 International Standard
Recording CodeJapanese:
JIS X 0308 International
Standard Recording CodeIndustry:
RIAJ Standards:
RIS503: International Standard
Recording CodeRIS505: ISRC Administration
Regulations

Audio Cassette Tape Standards:
International: IEC60094 “Magnetic Tape Sound
Recording and Reproducing System”
Psrt1-7
Japanese:
JIS S 8604 Cassette Tape
RecordingIndustry:
RIAJ Standards:
RIS306: Audio Cassette Tape Recording
Label Content and Format
RIS307: Cassette Tape Recording
Accessories

The ISRC system was developed by themusic content industry over many years andwas subsequently officially adopted by theISO. Matters such as the administration of thecountry code used in the ISRC system andselection of the administrative organizationfor each country are overseen by theInternational Federation of the PhonographIndustry (IFPI), and the RIAJ was selected by
IFPI to carry out such activities in Japan.
Therefore, it is the RIAJ that determines
regulations regarding the administration of
ISRCs in Japan.

7.2 Other Standards
The analog disk and ISRC standards
mentioned in the previous section wereoriginally developed and used by the industry
as a whole. Of these, some were originallyprivate standards developed by a certain
company and later, in the interests offacilitating
marketingandensuring
compatibility, after sufficient discussion they
were adopted by organizations that set
international standards, including theInternational Electrotechnical Commission(IEC), to became international standards.
Examples of such standards can be still beobserved with audio cassette tapes and CDs.
Standards for audio cassette tapes areshown in Table 7.3, while standards for CDs
are shown in Table 7.4.

Table 7.4 CD standards.
CD Standards:
International: IEC908 Compact Disc Digital
Audio System
Japanese:
JIS S 8605 Compact Disc Digital
Audio System
Industry:
RIAJ Standards:
RIS204: Audio CD Label Content andFormat
RIS203: Compact Disc Accessories

The abovementioned industry standards(RIAJ RIS Codes) are available for download
in PDF format at the following website:
http://www.riaj.or.jp/issue/ris/
In addition to the above, there are otherindustry standards for, among other things,
preventing confusion among users. These
include many industry standards regarding
testing methods and connections for speakers,
amplifiers and players that compliant with JIS
standards.
The main reference material referred to inthis chapter can be found in the text.

69

8 Methods of Identification and Protection for
Recorded Materials
8.1 ISRC Identification of Recorded

8.2 Protection of Recorded Materials

Materials
In an age where the music content
business has become established as a businessin its own right and recorded music is
recognized as a commodity, identification is a
key factor. Unique identification methods formusic recordings with or without video were
investigated by the ISO, and the ISO3901
International Standard Recording Code
(ISRC) system was established in 1986.
Following the establishment of the ISRC
system by the ISO, JIS codes and RIAJ codes(RIS codes) were also established, including
JIS X 0308. ISRC administration standards
were discussed by the International
Federation of the Phonograph Industry (IFPI),
which was appointed by the ISO as aninternational administrative organization for
the ISRC system, and enacted in November
1989, after which by July 1991 the RIAJ
formulated administrative guidelines andobtained the approval of the Board of
Directors in October of the same year. These
codes and guidelines explain the compositionof the 12-alphanumeric character ISRC, aswell as related administrative standards.
Administration of these codes is overseeninternationally by the IFPI, which delegatesadministrative organizations in each country,with administration in Japan being carried out
by RIAJ. The 12-character code contain a
two-character country code, a threecharacter-alphanumeric registrant code, twocharacters referring to the year and afive-character code that is unique to therecording.

70

When it comes to protecting recordedmaterials there are both legal and technicalaspects to consider. Although mainly thetechnical aspects will be dealt with in thispaper, basic matters regarding the legal
aspects are touched on below.
As copyrights cover not only property
rights, but also some personal rights, withmusic, there are rights for the composer andlyricist in the form of copyrights, while a
distributor of such copyrighted work is
entitled to related rights (or neighboringrights), as shown in Fig. 8.1. Related rights
are granted to entities such as performers,arrangers, record producers, broadcastingorganizations and cable broadcasting
companies.
As shown in Fig. 8.1, rights concerning
recorded materials are, in actual fact, related
rights, meaning that as long as the uniquenessof the ISRC can be ensured, it is a convenient
identification system for neighboring rightholders. For example, many CDs contain the
ISRC as part of a subcode and although an
attempt was made to use the ISRC toestablish an automatic payment system forneighboring rights, which entailed thebroadcasting of the ISRC when the work wasplayed, unfortunately the system found only
limit use.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchCopyright (Copyright Law)
Patent right (Patent Law)
Rights concerning
intellectual
creationsUtility model right(Utility Model Law)
Design right(Design Law)

Intellectual
property rights

Layout-design exploitationright (Integrated Circuit
Layout-design Law)
Plant breeders’ rights(Plant Variety Protection
Law)

Rights concerning
trademarks

Trademark rights(Trademark Right Law)
Trade name rights(Trade Name Law)

Author's personality
rightsRights to make the work public
Rights to identity
Rights to preserve integrity
Author’s property
rightsRight to reproduce the work
Right to perform
Right to play
Right to broadcast
Right to screen, etc.
NeighboringrightsRights of distributors, including
performers, record producers,
broadcasting companies;
sound-recording rights;
image-recording rights;
broadcasting rights, etc.

Rights associated with the Unfair Competition Prevention Law
Protection of trade secret (Unfair Competition Prevention Law)

Fig. 8.1 Major types of intellectual property rights(Bold line-squares indicate rights for intellectual creations in association with music)(Source: Intellectual Property Rights, by Nobuhiro Okida, Masahiro Murakami and Seiya
Uchida, page 153)
The main reason for such is the different
way in which personality rights andneighboring rights are handled undercopyright laws in the US, Japan and Europe,
meaning that even though music is universal,
it was not possible to handle copyrights in thesame way in each country where the music
was sold. Although the rights of broadcasters
were traditionally stronger in the US,
allowing them to use recorded materials,
including disk records, in their broadcasts
without paying royalties, in Europe and Japan,
royalties must be paid. In Europe, for morethan half a century, broadcasting stations
have been reporting titles of recordedmaterials and how many minutes they wereplayed for each program broadcast andpaying a royalty to right holders. In Japan, fora long time, no accurate records were kept ofroyalties owed and right holders and users
met together once a year to agree on theamount for the year. When it was paid, rightholders would then divide that amount up
among themselves through negotiation. Only
recently did the industry start to keep accurate
records of recorded material usage in order tocollect and distribute the royalties justly andfairly. Under such circumstances, although
the ISRC system works well in Europe, it was
not eagerly adopted in the US due to the lackof prospects for increasing revenue for rightholders, while in Japan, despite some
improvements, the traditional way ofnegotiating has been hindering the promotionof the ISRC system.
After the war, content businesses andsoftware business based on intellectual
property rights came into the limelight andthis was the first field in which capital
liberalization was carried out in Japan.
Although large electronics companies in the
US and Europe had been investing in thisfield since before the war, it was only during
the 1960s that Japanese electronics
companies showed interest in record
companies and capital started flow.
Immediately following such investment fromelectronics companies into record companies,
the digitization of music recordings began
and digital recording devices for consumers
hit the market. However, as such devises
made cloning of recorded material easy,
friction between electronics industry andmusic industry suddenly materialized in theform of copyright issues. Differences incopyright laws, especially with regard toneighboring rights, between Japan, the US
and Europe made this issue even more
complicated. As it was difficult for theEuropean electronics industry and record
industry to introduce new restrictions on
copying digital material as they had already71

acknowledged the right to remuneration for
payment of damages incurred by copyrightholders and holders of neighboring rights,
they suggested a serial copy management
system (SCMS) that allows one generation
copying of digital material. The electronics
industry in the US was on the decline at thetime and although the music industry wasincreasing its exports to the world, the US
was hesitant to use the same system as
Europe due to differences in neighboringrights. On the other hand, as the electronics
industry in Japan was flourishing and global
sales of audio equipment were increasing, due
to concerns regarding the standardization ofrights to remuneration in Japan and the US,
the aim was to establish an SCMS that did notcome with the right to remuneration. The
music industry in Japan, on the other hand,insisted on establishing a fair and safe
solution in the form of a debit system, which
was different from an SCMS but still
protected the right to remuneration(preliminary meeting for Athens DAT
meeting, Washington D.C., May 1989). Later,
due to lobbying by the electronics industry inEurope, etc., the IFPI, the organizer of theAthens DAT meeting, demanded that the
RIAJ skip the meeting. As a result, the SCMS
was adopted and DAT was introduced
without the consent of the RIAJ.
In light of the above, in terms of theprotection of recorded materials, it is clearthat the current state is far from “protected”
and that drastic improvements are stillrequired.
Generally speaking, there are thought tobe three ways of ensuring that rights related
to recorded materials are protected.
1． This method only works with users who
have plenty of funds: Users, such as
content providers and distributors, enter
into agreements with holders ofneighboringrights,assumeallresponsibility for protecting the recordedmaterials, and in cases where rights arebreached, users make compensation fordamages. In such cases, even if there is arevolt among users, nonetheless, allresponsibility will rest with such users.
2． Conventional method: Users come up

72

with distribution systems and protection
systems and present them to right holders.
This scenario requires the establishmentof a security plan, but this had hardly
ever happened before. Right holders canonly trust users and no consideration has
been given to internal revolts amongusers.
3． The method that it is hoped can be usedin the future: Considering that recordedmaterials are the property of all of
mankind, users and right holders will
discuss how to build a fair and safe
system to effectively utilize recordedmaterials while protecting them. Security
plans and responses to revolts will also be
considered.
With DVDs, method No.2 above wasadopted by the industry. Although theydecided to use encryption technology,
trusting their colleagues the hardware
companies, the protection was broken due tothe negligence of one of the hardware
companies, causing huge problem for theother hardware companies and users. Today,these kind of internal revolts occur on a daily
basis inside companies, so it is unreasonable
to say that such events only happen to
someone else.
In order to achieve method No.3 above,
which is thought to be the most desirable way,
RIAJ established the Content Security
Management Center, which is an agency toauthorize and democratically manage public
encryption keys, in order to protect content
based on public-key cryptography, and wasconsulted by users. Although this method did
not become the standard, it did show theimportance of encryption key management incontent management, as well as the way inwhich such content should be managed in the
future.
In order to be able to solve theabove-mentioned problems in a timely
manner, the introduction of a safe system isrequired that is compatible with laws
regarding copyrights and neighboring rightsfrom all countries, and under which recorded
data can be fairly and democraticallymanaged.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. MarchBibliography[1] Open Distribution Base that Achieved
Flexible and Secure Content Protection,
by Anazawa, Takemura, Tsunehiro,
Hasebe and Hatakeyama, Information
Processing Society of Japan, Special
Interest Group Report, EIP14-5
November 30, 2001.

73

9 Current State of Reference Materials
The names of the world’s first/Japan’s
first analog recording equipment and related
products are shown below, including details
regarding the current state.
The first SP record that was recorded in Japan(Fig. 3.4) is held by Kanazawa Phonograph
Museum.
The first series of SP records that were
produced in Japan, including the music
played by Ijuro Yoshimura (Fig. 3.5), areheld by Kanazawa Phonograph Museum.
Pirated versions (Rabbit Record, Yoshino
Record, etc.) (Fig. 3.6) of Ijuro’s records (Fig.
3.5) are held by Kanazawa Phonograph
Museum.
Phonographs made in Japan (Fig. 3.7, 3.8 and
3.9).
The first record player made in Japan was the
Nipponophone record player with horn,model No. 35 (Fig. 3.7), and working units ofthis model are held by Kanazawa Phonograph
Museum, Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. andothers, with one on display in Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum. The number of metal
sheets comprising the horn of the model heldby Nippon Columbia is different from the oneheld by Kanazawa Phonograph Museum, and
it is assumed that this is because the horn on
the Nippon Columbia unit was replaced at alater stage. Kanazawa Phonograph Museum
also holds a Model No. 50 (Fig. 3.8), which
went on the market at the same time as the
Model No. 35 mentioned above, as well as amodel without a horn, the Eufon (Fig. 3.9),
which was released during the year following
the release of the Model No. 35. It is wellknown that Kenji Miyazawa had a Eufon unit
and cherished it.
The present state of reference materials
regarding the first phonographs produced inJapan (in 1910) is as follows.
・ Nipponophone No. 25: Document only.
・ Nipponophone No. 32.5: Document

74

only.
・ Nipponophone No. 35: Unit held byKanazawa Phonograph Museum (Fig.
3.7).
・ Nipponophone No. 50: Unit held byKanazawa Phonograph Museum (Fig.
3.8).
Two models of phonograph withouthorn were released in 1910, following
the release of Nipponophone No. 50.
One was the Eufon (Fig. 3.9), wasowned and loved by Kenji Miyazawa.
The general purpose cutter head (Fig. 4.2)
used on the disk recorder that was used forbroadcasting the imperial edict at the end of
the war, which is on display at NHK Museumof Broadcasting (Fig. 4.6).
The disk used for the imperial edict at the endof the war is on display in the NHK Museumof Broadcasting (Fig. 4.7).
A cutter head smaller than the one shown in
Fig. 4.2 is used on the disk recorder held byKanazawa Phonograph Museum.
The Denon DL-103 moving coil type stereo
cartridge for broadcasting (Fig. 4.12) is stillon the market today.
A Filmon sound belt (Fig. 4.14) is jointly
held by the Tsubouchi Memorial Theater
Museum and Tokyo National ResearchInstitute for Cultural Properties. Kanazawa
Phonograph Museum also holds five rolls of
the same.
A Filmon tabletop Filmon/record player (Fig.
4.16) is held by Kanazawa Phonograph
Museum. However, as this particular one has
been modified, it is desirable to have it
restored to its original state.
The first tape recorder that was made in Japan(Fig. 4.17) is held by the NHK Museum of
Broadcasting and is currently on display.

National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

The successor model to the STAX
electrostatic earspeaker SR-1 (Fig. 4.18) iscurrently on the market. The initial model isheld by multiple numbers of individuals andit still produces good quality sound.
With regard to the transmission test that was
conducted by Kenjiro Takayanagi using a
letter “イ” (Fig. 4.19), the reproduced testing
system is displayed in the NHK Museum of
Broadcasting and the original plate showing“ イ ” is kept at the Kenjiro Takayanagi
Foundation.
The MH microphone (Fig. 5.1) is held anddisplayed by the NHK Museum of
Broadcasting.
The following microphones that were madeoverseas are held by Nippon Columbia andare still used for recording.
ALTEC 639B microphone (Fig. 5.2).
RCA 44BX microphone (Fig. 5.3).
RCA 77DX microphone (Fig. 5.4).
77DX microphone used to record traditional
Japanese music (Fig. 5.5).
Telefunken M49 condenser microphone (Fig.
5.6).
First broadcasting condenser microphone
made in Japan CU-1 (Fig. 5.7).
Neumann 69 Stereo condenser microphone(Fig. 5.8).
Neumann KU-100 Dummy head binauralmicrophone (Fig. 5.9).
Schoeps microphones (Fig. 5.10).
The first Type A velocity microphone madein Japan was developed by Tokyo Electric(now Toshiba Corporation) and is on display
at the NHK Museum of Broadcasting (Fig.
4.6 left).
These Danish B&K prototype field-type andpressure-type microphones (Fig. 5.11) are
held by Nippon Columbia and are still used
for recording.
Direct Cutting Disks
All three pairs of direct cutting disks shownin Fig. 5.17, Fig. 5.18 and Fig. 5.19 are heldby Nippon Columbia.

Records recorded using the recorderdeveloped by NHK STRL (Fig. 5.20), withwhich no editing was possible, were releasedin January 1971 (Fig. 5.21).
Nippon Columbia NCB7003 “Something” by
Steve Marcus with Jiro Inagaki & Soulmedia
held by Nippon Columbia.
Record containing the music recorded using
the recorder developed by NHK STRL (Fig.
5.20), with which no editing was possible,
was released in April 1971 (Fig. 5.22):
Nippon Columbia NCC8004-N “Hit!” by
Tsutomu Yamashita.
The world’s smallest PCM/digital recorderfor master recording, DN-023R (Fig. 5.23) isowned by Nippon Columbia under thesafekeeping of The Sumitomo Warehouse
Co., Ltd.
The first record recorded using the world’s
first PCM digital recorder for masterrecording, with which no editing was possible(Fig. 5.23), was released in October, 1972:
Nippon Columbia NCC8501 Mozart string
quartet No. 17 “The Hunt” and No. 15 by the
Smetana Quartet performed on April 24, 25
and 26 1972 at Aoyama Tower Hall. It is heldby Nippon Columbia.
The current status of digital recorders
developed by Nippon Columbia after 1974 is
as follows:
・ DN-023RA: First PCM digital recorderused in Europe. 1974. Four-head VTR.
Document only.
・ DN-034R: Four-head VTR. 1977. Unit
held by Nippon Columbia in
Minami-Azabu (Fig. 5.29).
・ DN-035R: U-matic VTR. 1979. Unit
held by Nippon Columbia in
Minami-Azabu.
・ DN-035RMK II: U-matic VTR. 1982.
Unit held by Nippon Columbia in
Minami-Azabu (Fig. 5.31).
・ DN-039R: U-matic VTR. 1984. Unit
held by Nippon Columbia in
Minami-Azabu.
The following digital recorders that weredeveloped by Sony were in great demand75among CD producers and are still used bymany studios today.
Sony Digital audio processor PCM-1630(held by Nippon Columbia) (Fig. 5.30)
Sony 2-channel Digital Audio Stationary
Head (DASH) recorder PCM-3402 (held by
Nippon Columbia) (Fig. 5.32)
Sony 48-track Digital recorder PCM-3348(held by Nippon Columbia) (Fig. 5.34)

Denon cutter head (Fig. 5.42) is held by
Nippon Columbia.
Fairchild cutter head (Fig. 5.43) is held by
Nippon Columbia.
Neumann SX-45 cutter head (Fig. 5.44) isheld by Nippon Columbia.

The following digital recorders that weredeveloped by Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
have been and still are used for CD
production.
Mitsubishi X-86 2-channel DASH recorder(Fig. 5.33)
Mitsubishi X-850 32 track digital recorder(Fig. 5.35, held by Nippon Columbia)

Ortofon cutter head (Denmark) (Fig. 5.45) isheld by Nippon Columbia.

The world’s first random access PCM audio
editing system DN-036ED (Fig. 5.36) was
developed in 1982 and was introduced to theindustry, but is no longer in use anywhere.

Denon direct drive motor for cutting machine(Fig. 5.54) is still used by Nippon Columbia.

The world’s first digital mixing console formastering was developed in 1984 andintroduced to the industry (Fig. 5.37). This
unit is owned by Nippon Columbia and stillin use by the same.

Westrex 3D cutter head (Fig. 5.46) is held by
Nippon Columbia.
Neumann SX-74 cutter head (Fig. 5.47) is
still used by Nippon Columbia.

Neumann cutting lathe (Fig. 5.55) is still usedby Nippon Columbia.
First PVC LP record made in Japan (Fig.
5.63) has been already registered in the list ofimportant scientific material in history ofJapan (“Engineering heritage for future
generation”).

Blumlein cutter head (Fig. 5.41) is held by
Nippon Columbia.

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National Museum of Nature and Science Technology Systematization Survey Report Vol.21 2014. March

10 Epilogue
Records are unique products that differ
from ordinary consumer products. Although
they do have things in common with otherproducts in terms of their need to be patented,
manufactured and distributed, they are special
in that they involve art, copyrights andneighboring rights, as well as being classed as
resalable products on account of their being
involved in culture. Furthermore, it is
impossible to establish a business withrecords alone, and they require content, suchas attractive music, and playback devices.
Therefore, there is the need to have excellent
audio technology at every stage of the record
production process, including recording,record manufacturing, and also the
production of playback devices.
As can be seen in this paper, at the dawnof the audio era, much new development
came about as a result of motivated research
by AT&T’s Bell Labs and its peripheralcompanies in the US. In Japan, even though
the scale was somewhat more limited, there
were still passionate researchers whodeveloped audio technologies that exceeded
the level of American technology, including
Tsubota, who developed a cutter head withproperties superior to those of heads
developed by AT&T, Hayashi, whodeveloped condenser pick-ups and condenser
ear speakers ahead of everyone else in theworld, and Ibuka, who developed consumer
magnetic recorders.

As audio-related technology matured, itbrought forth the development of the audio
industry in Japan, which produced many
world-class consumer audio products. In
terms of record-related technology developedaround that time, compact discs should be
mentioned especially as they possible the
distribution of digitally recorded music togeneral consumers.
Although up until now audio technology
has been developed on the basis of analog
technology, further improvements are eagerly
awaited through the utilization of digitaltechnology. However, it is often said thatwhile the music industry has benefited fromthe development of digital technology interms of cost-performance, it has not beenpossible to surpass the level of analog
recording in terms of artistic quality. I hopethat one day this challenge will be conquered
through the collaboration of audio techniciansin Japan.
Lastly, I would like to express my sincere
gratitude to the many people who haveassisted me in the writing of this paper.

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