Evening star., 1952-08-24

Soun0 reproduction
BY Irving Kolodin, Edward T
(Prentice-HGll;; $4.50.)
A record dealer of our ac-
quaintance complains that most
of his customers buy quality
sound rather than quality per-
formance. He asserts, unhap-
PLY:
They don't care about the
playing. If the reproduction is
good they want it,"
This one-sided state Of af-
fairs may or may not be gen.
eral. and probably. in any case.
it is only temporary. But un-
queStionably it has been brought
about by recent improvements
not only in records themselves,
but in the means for playing
them in the home. A new cult
has sprung up, whose watch
word is high fidelity" It's
increasing progeny is not likely
to be slowed by the book here re-
viewed, although those who heed
its dictates will not slight musi-
cality.
Three-Woy Discussion
Messrs. Kolodin. Candy and
Burke review records for the
Saturday Review. In addition
Messrs. Candy and Burke have
pursued technical investigations
the former of record manu-
facture, the latter of reproduc-
ing equipment. These special
qualifications lend themselves to
a three-way division Of subject
matter, record making, record
playing and record criticism, the
last being Mr.. Kolodin's forte.
\ + 4 +
About the Candy contribu-
ton one can say Immediately:
"Bravo!" Considering the mil
lions Of discs that make their
way across shop counters, it is
astonishing how little is known
generally Of their manufacture.
Here is the corrective brief
history, starting with Thomas
Edison's cylinder: a detailed
breakdown Of the present disc
manufacturing process; an ex-
ploration of the recording hall,
"ive" versus dead" sound and
the pitfalls Of microphoning and
a discussion Of the marvellous
ease brought to recording ses-
sions by magnetic tape.
PIeo for Standards
Revealed are why the terms
waxing" and "shellac" both are
now out-of-date; why discs SO
often are off-center (no ex-
cuse, really; why labels some
times are reversed: why gold
sputtering" probably isn't as
beneficial in the disc-duplicating
process as less-awesome silver;
why treble is boosted (and bass
reduced, and why the home
player must be able to reverse
it. An entire chapter is devoted
to the recording characteristic"
(treble-bass alteration), and one
can agree heartily with the au-
thor's wish that all makers
would adopt one such character
istic as standard.
A reference to recording halls
is amusing. The new ones, says
Mr.. Candy. are too plainly func-
tional; old-time gingerbread"
makes better sound. The his
torical resume is especially in
teresting to WaShingtonians,
too. since record-making had its
infancy here, although this
point is not emphasized. Mr..
Candy writes lucidly, managing
occasionally to reduce compli-
Gated matters to very simple
terms.
With Mr.. Burke, we arrive at
the thickest part Of the book and
the domain Of the "woofer" and
"tweeter." This whimsical termi-
nology. as almost everybody
must know by now, has to do
with loudspeakers-woofer being
a bass speaker, tweeter being
the treble. Mr.. Burke is a
woofer-tweeter evangelist. In
fact he would do away entirely
with the traditional cloud
speaker" "a misnomer, he states;
it has to speak softly tool and
the whole traditional 'box" that
surrounds it in favor of a GUS
tom assembled sound system
made of "components." These
are: speaker preferably pluraD
amplif1er minimum 10 watts),
pickup diamonds only. turn
table preferably manuaD. tone
arm Qonger the hetter), radio
tuner GIN Of course) and cabi-
nets (speaker separated. Mr.,
Burke lines up five categories, In
as many price ranges, the top
four being ''high fidelity" the
bottom merely good"
The price tag on the top as
sembly is staggering. but the
bottom one is quite modest
t$200-$25O).
jury Books Choices
One can quarrel with some Of
the specific choices. and un-
douhtedly many will. Mr.. Burke
is frankly dogmatic. He cites
the support Of . jury Of audi
tors in most cases. Yet he