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September 24, 2008

Comments

lipwak

I have that Railroad Sounds record (seen on the cover)! Great stuff to play loud (even after you get tinnitus...) Nothing like having a diesel engine running through your house. ("Fire it up, Bamba.") And I love sound effects records in general anyway. (I probably have a few more Audio Fidelity records too but I'd have to look for them.)

Ernie (Not Bert)

Was Audio Fidelity first? What about those records from Cook that actually had two grooves that had to be played at the same time to produce a stereo signal? I suppose those don't really count...

utm

BTW: The mildly NSFW pasties are from the cover of Mohammed El-Bakkar and His Oriental Ensemble's excellent album "Port Said."

Hearitwow

Wikipedia credits Audio Fidelity with producing the first commercial stereo disc, with The Dukes of Dixieland on side 1 and railroad sounds on side 2, in November of 1957. Cook's records were built on the binaural model, with two separate microphones cutting two separate grooves that played back independently of one another. Audio Fidelity used the Westrex system, where the left and right channels were cut into either side of the same groove.

So Cook had the first stereo of any kind, while Audio Fidelity had the first stereophonic discs. All of which reminds me that I've got to get around to ripping the binaural demo that's sitting in my stacks.

Andrea (Frey) Bass

Thanks for recognizing my dad's company and his contribution to the record industry. For more info, check out the Wikipedia article on Audio Fidelity Records. (I wrote most of it, but feel free a la Wiki to add additional info.)

Andrea (Frey) Bass
[email protected]

Andrea (Frey) Bass

Thanks for recognizing my dad's company and his contribution to the record industry. For more info, check out the Wikipedia article on Audio Fidelity Records. (I wrote most of it, but feel free a la Wiki to add additional info.)

Andrea (Frey) Bass
[email protected]

Andrea (Frey) Bass

Thanks for recognizing my dad's company and his contribution to the record industry. For more info, check out the Wikipedia article on Audio Fidelity Records. (I wrote most of it, but feel free a la Wiki to add additional info.)

Andrea (Frey) Bass
[email protected]

Ernie (Not Bert)

Hmmm, how would one play a dual-tracked record? I suppose you could record both tracks and then sync them up, but that sure seems like a lot of work and how would you ever get it perfectly synced? Maybe you could find a head with two needles? Doubtful. Either way, I look forward to hearing the results of your recording!

(Now you've got me thinking about Monty Python and their three sided record. I bet they thought they were the first!)

Ray Brazen

My god, how many AF records did my dad have over the years? Lets see now... Dukes of Dixieland, Jo Basile, Fabulous Eddie Osborn, those train sound effects records, not to mention every last Leon Berry album the label ever released (he was and remains a big pipe organ music fan). So great to see a post on this record label.

Andrea, your dad ran a great label. Thanks for helping to keep its spirit alive.

The link to the Sidney Frey article doesn't work... so I fixed it. The link below should work just fine.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,872426,00.html?promoid=googlep

Eric  Barry

Just to clear it up, Cook released the first commercial stereo LP, if by commercial you mean for sale in stores and so forth. At the time, binaural was used interchangeably with stereo. You needed a weird-looking forked tone-arm to play them. And of course they had half the playing time.

Stereo tape proved more popular, and cutting edge audiophiles had stereo tape collections prior to the Audio Fidelity's 1957 release of a single-grooved stereo LP in the Westrex format we all know and love.

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