It was a Wednesday

Yesterday I went to another meeting of my local audio society. The presentation was a comparison of different formats. The presenter had an SACD player, a CD player, a turntable and a reel to reel tape player. A what? you say. I reel to reel tape player was the first playback device capable of stereo, and this one in particular dated from the 1950s. It was quite a contraption. The presenter had a recording, from the same master tape, on all four formats. We first listened to the SACD player, then the CD, then the turntable, then the reel to reel. Our goal was to do this a few times with a few of the recordings he had on the different formats and compare. This did not really work out.

Once we got to the tape player the crowd was pretty blown away. This was a machine that had been sitting in an attic for 10+ years, playing a tape from 1956 and it sounded amazing. After we heard the first tape we wouldn't let him go back to the other formats, we just wanted the tapes. He played a few more classical recordings, which all sounded great, then he played this recording of some kind of Dixie-jazz that was recorded in some guy's living room back in the 50's and I have to say it was unbelievable. The imaging was amazing, the instruments sounded true and everything just sounded authentic. It sounded like there was a band in the room. I have to say it seemed to be the most accurate reproduction of music I think I have ever heard. I was floored. I guess it is just another example of what we can learn by exploring how they did it back in the day.