HI-FI TAPE RECORDING, December 1956

OST magazine writers when discussing a controversial item love to start out with the statement that, "this article is completely and entirely unbiased." In making a tape recording, anything unbiased is usually full of distortion as any engineer will tell you. If you become over-biased you get poor high frequency response. (There is no extra charge for the fabulous technical education we are giving you.) We know we are biased, but with just the right amount, and our bias frequency is high enough to suit anyone. From the title of this epic you might think we don't like stereo. This is an unfair assumption on your part, and we will ask you to dismiss the notion at once. We think stereo is the only answer to the need for realistic music reproduction in the home. This, of course, precludes inviting the New York Philharmonic into your living room, with the resultant complications involved. Before anyone from the New York Philharmonic can take umbrage, let us explain we relish their music, but doubt our living room's physical capacity. Why bother, why bother, indeed?

We do not like the term "expert," there are so many of them, so please put us down as one who likes his stereo, and has for a number of years. We have had stereo in one form or another kicking around the house for quite a time, and we have managed to learn to live with it, and to love it even for its vices. Call it binaural or stereo, a two channel sound reproduction would sound the same by any other name. Why bother is a good question, because, for a number of years, we had to go to considerable trouble, annoyance, bother and aggravation to get our stereo playback. But let's go back to the beginning, a good place to start anything, and tell you of our trials, and tribulations.

Our first introduction to stereo came when we were browsing in a prominent record shop in New York. They were having a closeout sale of records. We spotted one particular record on the counter that looked down-right peculiar to us. It was a "Cook" record, and had proudly emblazoned on its jacket the word "Binaural." Just what this meant was not at all obvious to us. We asked the salesman, and he said that "It's a record that you play with two needles," a most profound and uninformative statement. The very idea of this fascinated us, and since it was cheap, and we can't resist a bargain, we bought it.

This represents the beginning of a long, sad saga. We took the thing home, and played it with the one needle system we had. We found the whole thing utterly ridiculous. Why in the world should you put the same music on a record twice? It is only fair to all involved to say that, we felt the two recordings had a slightly different sound, but why on earth two? Figuring all hi-fi addicts to be nuts anyway, we let it go at that for a while.

One day a friend, this we sometimes doubt, told us you had to use two pickups, two amplifiers and two loudspeakers to play the record. Why? Well, he didn't exactly know, but this was what you had to do anyway. It still seemed like tom-foolery to us.

About this time there was a Hi-Fi Show in New York, and we wended our merry way to it, little realizing the consequences. Oh, rue the day! At this show we visited an exhibition room operated by a small recording company called "Cook." Here, in awe-inspiring fashion, we found out why there were two tracks.

Late that night or early the next morning to be more precise, after many hours of labour, we had managed to fix up our transcription turntable with two pickups. These we connected to a borrowed amplifier, and speaker, as well as our own system. It was early the next morning before we quit listening to our lone Binaural record, and its two pickups, amplifiers, and speakers. We had the disease; our own diagnosis was a "fatal case."

Such a magnificent sound demanded our most immediate attention. We called the Cook people, and they said that they had a gadget which would, like a sidecar on a motorcycle, convert my pickup for binaural records. I drove to Stamford the next day, by car not motorcycle, and after a lengthy search found the Cook firm, snuggled next to the Bozak people who make those fabulous speakers. Here, after considerable difficulty, I managed to buy one of the sidecars and several records.

For several months I was happy though frustrated. My marriage was on the brink of disaster. The good wife was tired of tip-toeing around the house to make sure my pickups stayed in the groove, so to speak. There must be a better way to make this new sound available, I was firmly convinced, but in my ignorance, I was willing to put up with the bother to hear the sound I got. The problem was how to keep two separate phonograph cartridges in the same relative groove at the same time, and not have to run to the player every twenty seconds. They even had a special record for adjusting your cartridge position and probably still have, if you could keep the cartridges in the right grooves long enough to adjust them. I bought the record, but dismal failure was the result, my fault, I was told, and it probably was.
About this time I read in a magazine about another firm which made Binaural records, some outfit in Livingston, New Jersey, called Livingston Electronics. Being lazy, I called them on the telephone and managed to get hold of a rather friendly and enthusiastic fellow named Ched Smiley. He informed me that they made a tone arm, which was, they felt, a wee bit easier to play these binaural records with, and lots more costly, and that they, too, had a library of such recordings. He also said, in passing, that they had tape recordings. Of course, I ordered an arm, and an assortment of records, die-hard that I am. I watched for the postman with due diligence for days, and finally, it came, a Livingston Binaural arm and my new records. Despite Mr. Smiley's avid claims that his eight-year-old daughter could set the arm down perfectly each time and keep the tracks in perfect synchronism, I experienced difficulty. (I have since seen Mr. Smiley's lovely daughter, and wish I had a nine-year-old son.) At any rate, I still was in the same trouble. I complained bitterly to Mr. Smiley, via long distance telephone. (In the meantime, I had moved to Michigan.) He sent me a tape, a Binaural tape, and I found myself in Utopia, almost.

Many long hours of wiring, and numerous burns, closely approximating third degree, and I had built a pair of tape amplifiers, using only three tubes of Unguentine. Coupled with a special tape deck I had ordered from Livingston, this made up a Binaural tape playback system. With feverish hands (I had a virus infection at the time) I put my tape on the deck, and waited for the leader to get by the heads. With a never-to-be-forgotten thrill, the full vista of tape stereo came forth from my speakers. This was the sound, and no problem of pickups wandering on the record. The tape was nailed fast in synchronism, I had been assured. It wasn't long before I broke the tape, and with fear and trepidation, I spliced it. Lo and behold, the dam thing was still in synchronism. This I felt was the final answer.

Not being too adept at tape recorder design, I had a bucketful of hum, and a number of other things we'd better leave unmentioned, wrong with my system, but at least it stayed put, and it sounded like nothing I had ever heard.

About this time the author went to work at VM, the Voice of Music. Here we found a receptive ear on the part of Kjell Gaarder, Research Director, to our enthusiasm for stereo. They had even designed their machine with space for another head to accommodate stereo playback. Before too long we found ourself working under Kjell Gaarder with fellow VM Engineers, Lorenz and Driscol in the design and release of the first mass-produced low-cost stereo unit, the famed VM Stere-0-Matic Conversion Kit. Here, at last, as recorded in the pages of "Tape Recording," was an economical tape system for stereophonic playback. At about the same time, the line of Ampex tape playbacks appeared, and stereo was on the way.

Shortly afterwards, the rash of new stereo tapes appeared. Everyone, even the great and mighty RCA, was aboard the bandwagon. Here, truly, was the birth following the labour pains of Livingston. Now, all you hear about is tape stereo, and if you are lucky, all you hear is stereo.

Having related our own experiences with stereo, what is the situation today? Remember the old battle of the speeds in records? We find ourselves in the same situation with stereo tape, but with a difference. Here we have some strong arguments to go in a certain direction, for a given application. As far as we can tell, all recording companies are now releasing tapes two ways, stacked and staggered. If any companies are not, and we have omitted mention of them, they are better off omitted.

This time the battle of speeds has become one of economics. To stagger is relatively inexpensive, to stack costs money of consequence at the moment. To stack permits easier editing, if you are concerned with editing to 1/5 of a second. At this point, the advantage of stacked heads over staggered heads ceases to exist. (We have already said we are biased.) With staggered heads, provided you were smart enough to leave room for an extra head in your transport, realizing binaural or stereo was coming and fast, you have lower head initial and replacement costs. Unless stacked head design and manufacturing are extremely closely controlled you have better ability to control alignment of the head to the tape, and less cross-talk from channel to channel with staggered heads. Thus, we find ourselves engaged in a great civil war to see whether stacked or staggered will win, while we sit back and snicker, since you can take your pick of head systems anyway, be our guest.

We can also, being biased, enjoy the struggles of several companies who blatantly announce that they have stacked heads available, until you try to buy one. Then they rather oddly evade the issue, and you wind up with staggered heads anyway. We have actually seen stacked heads which work made by some firms. There may be others who have them, but every time you try to buy one, they tell you they will be in production in about ten weeks. One firm has told us this three times, at consecutive ten week intervals. This is subject to change on 10 minutes notice and the rumour factories are working overtime.

The writer will not try to tell you what stereo or binaural sounds like. Stereo you gotta hear. Stereo is with speakers, binaural with phones, should you be violently concerned. All we can say is put on your snow shoes, if you haven't heard it yet, and hear it but quick. Please, don't be like the editor of one of our biggest radio and "science fiction" magazines, who was told stereo didn't work with loudspeakers, and believed it. He now has a number of articles in his magazine on stereo, ersatz and genuine, and has obviously seen the error of his ways. We are going to bake him a "humble" pie tonight. Hear it, be your own judge. Where there is this much smoke, something must be burning, or somebody.

Naturally, when anything good appears, someone will figure out a short-cut or a way to complicate things. There is a rash of articles in some of our more prominent publications concerning the production of "synthetic" or as we prefer to call it, "ersatz" stereo. There are also a few people who feel that two tracks are not as good as three. For these people we suggest four, or even sixteen tracks. After all, listening enjoyment, if you figure as some folks must, doubles as the cost squares. There are others, like your benighted author, who feel that two is as good as four, particularly when the complications and cost square; and three only sounds better in rooms approximately the proportions of the New York Coliseum. For further details on this matter, we refer you to Euclid.

There has never been a development in the field of audio which has not had its detractors and usual host of people who have "better" answers. At the same time, there has never been any development in audio which has had as many sincere, capable advocates. Some years ago, in the course of writing a demonstration tape, the father of modern tape stereo said, "There is no way known to modern science of separating a recording once it has been put together." (Ched Smiley . . . Livingston Demo Tape 1953.) This is still true, irrespective of half-baked attempts to the contrary. Despite the claims of many authors in the popular radio press, any demonstration will prove the truth of the words of "the great white father of stereo." With great diligence, enterprise and plentiful waste of money, we have tried most of the "ersatz" systems, and, we feel, real stereo is worth the bother, if it is a bother now-a-days.

While we have enjoyed stereo as a playback medium, and, to go along with the Elvis Presley fans, feel it to be the "most," we cannot ignore stereo recording, which is even more "most." Where the stereo "recorded" tape leaves off, your own stereo tapes, recorded by yourself take up. While we cannot all be lucky enough to record the Florence May Festival Orchestra, much good local musical talent is available and is well worth the effort of recording in stereo, if not monaural.

Up to the present, most stereo recording equipment available has been prohibitive in cost. This was a condition which could not long exist, due to the competitive spirit in the tape field, the demand for reasonably-priced, stereo record equipment, and the yawning abyss in the tape fans' pockets.

Let's face it, stereo is here. Stacked, staggered, or switchable (hermaphrodite) it will survive. It has already proven its ability to survive, its will for survival. Despite all the "miraculous" new systems, 3 tracks, two tracks each direction, criss-crossed heads, and the host of ersatz systems, we find good old fashioned two channel stereo growing by leaps and bounds. "Stereo why bother" is a good question, but there's no bother anymore on playback, just good listening, this explains why we are concentrating on recording at present, we love bother. We are going to make the most of the little time left before the "ready-made," "store bought" home stereo recorders are available to all. We have to leave now, we are going to record a train wreck in stereo, gotta go down and jam the switch, before the train gets there.