History of the early American streo tape era and staggered head recorders
I have had to put this piece, on the early years of stereo tape in America, I put together at the request of British audio Historian Barry Jones on another post due to length. Here it is.
Here is what I wrote to Barry Jones with special reference to the era of the stereo staggered head recorders.
You might want to verify my information. I will copy to Geoff as he may be able to revise and extend what information I'm going to give you.
The first staggered head recorder was the Magnecord, 1951.
http://online.sfsu.edu/~hl/s.html
I'm not sure of the head spacing.
This whole era is complicated, as there was no agreed head spacing. All the tapes I own, have different delays between channels and so must have been produced for different machines.
RCA produced a big repertoire of staggered head tapes prior to 1959. In 1959 RCA invented and produced the four track stacked head, and the era of the two sided stereo tape began. The history of all this is difficult, as the RCA head office and archives in Camden NJ were bulldozed into barges on the Delaware River, with no attempt to preserve their important technical archives. I have tried to do extensive research on this era but information is sparse. I have managed to get some data. I have established that the head spacing was 0.66667sec at 7.5 ips. The other point of contention is the equalization of these tapes and their stacked two and four track tapes, and for that matter their masters. They said their equalization was to the NATB curve. All I can tell you is that all RCA tapes play back hot and need equalization, and so do CDs made from their master tapes of that era. I have made extensive inquiries to find the time constants of the curve they used. I have been completely unsuccessful. I have to believe that information was bulldozed into the Delaware River.
This matter is not trivial because this was a golden period for RCA, with lots of fine opera recordings, and recordings of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Fritz Riener being especially notable. At that time RCA made their own tape machines. These recordings were mastered on three channel machines. The Mercury Living presence and some Capitol recordings were made mostly on three channel Ampex machines or three channel optical recorders. These recordings are now being issued in three channel SACD. The Mercury recordings were made by Robert and Wilma Fine. Wilma Cozart Fine is still alive, and in her nineties and has a three channel Ampex recorder. Decca who have the Mercury masters hired Wilma Cozart fine to re master the recordings to three channel SACD. She commissioned a custom recorder from a Japanese builder. When she verified it was better than the Ampex machine, that is what she used to play back the masters. I have to say she did a fantastic job. I have some of these SACDs and they are astounding. These recordings, always good, now live up to the hype, as the buzz was always, "yes but you should hear the three channel tapes". Well now we can.
The RCA reissues however are another matter. BMG hold the rights to these. The re mastering of these has been sloppy. I, and others have noticed that they have the equalization error! This makes them sound unpleasantly bright.
Anyhow I digress, but it is important history. The RCA staggered tapes could be played on their machines, but RCA domestic machines were never plentiful. Most of these tapes were, and still are, played on machines made by the Voice of Music Company of Benton Harbor Michigan.
They produced machines with the correct head spacing to play the RCA tapes. When the stacked head tapes came out, they made machines that could be switched between staggered and stacked heads. They can be recognized by controls over the head assembly.
The Voice of Music Company products have always had an enthusiast following and individuals who preserve and restore their products.
http://www.thevoiceofmusic.com/index.htm
This site contains good photographs of all their products.
I have never had a staggered head RCA tape in my hands. These tapes do come up on eBay and usually fetch $250 to $300 each. I have got in touch with some purchasers, and they have all been owners and enthusiasts of Voice of Music Company products. The staggered head tapes that I posses, have been by Sonotape and Livingstone. They do not have the RCA head spacing.
I'm attaching a couple of pictures of Wav. files as a word document, so you should be able to open it. On the first stereo Wav. file you will see the delay between the channels. The second Wav. file shows the channels synchronized.
There were I believe, other manufacturers producing staggered head machines, but information is very sketchy, and I have not devoted the time to it. I think I have introduced you to the most important companies involved in this era, which in its prime was short lived and chaotic. There were a lot of strange audio devices in this era that are footnotes. One of the most interesting and colorful was Earl "Madman" Muntz, and his four track cartridge machines.
http://www.answers.com/topic/4-track-cartridge
I don't recall staggered tapes being issued in the UK. The RCA offerings were however extensive over here, even prior to the official launch of stereo in 1958.
The other thing is I remember the British prerecorded commercial tapes as being very low fidelity, and not plentiful. In the UK everybody thought that discs were best and probably are. However it turns out that commercial four and two track tapes were plentiful here. They circulate on eBay in enormous quantities, almost all from American sellers, very few from anywhere else. There are two sisters, one Deborah Gunn, trading as reel-lady in California and her sister Jayne Swanson, trading as reel-sister, in Missouri, find and sell these tapes in astonishing quantities, and have quite remarkable offerings. Deborah recently had a huge sale of "madman" Muntz's four track cartridge tapes.
I have bought quite a collection of reel to reel tapes. I'm astonished at the fidelity compared to what I remember from my youth in the UK. RCA and Columbia produced their own. Decca, DGG and EMI had their tapes produced superbly by Ampex. ARGO and Phillips were produced over here by Barclay Crocker, almost all as Dolby B four track tapes. Ampex produced quite a bit of the Decca inventory as Dolby B tapes. I bought one of old Harry Kloss's Advent Dolby B encoder/decoders, not working for a song on eBay. I have restored it. I'm astonished at the quality of these Dolby B tapes.
Also an eccentric engineer Harry Belock, who made a fortune designing and manufacturing guided missile systems back in the fifties, was a tape recorder nut. In his works he designed and had built his own mixers and tape recorders, and then hired orchestras and famous conductors to let him record works. Back in the late fifties his equipment was more advanced than anything anybody else had. He issued real time 2 track copies of the masters at 7.5 ips. He also issued high speed copy four tracks and LPS. He did not like disc and the LPS did not have due care and attention. He sold all this under the Everest label. I have acquired two of his real time two tracks. Sir Adrian Boult conducting Mahler No1. The only Mahler Boult ever recorded, and many consider the best recorded performance ever. And I have Malcolm Arnold conducting his Scottish Dances. The fidelity and impact of these tapes is unbelievable. Any one who hears these are totally blown away.
Any way it seems to me tape had a much bigger role in the history of Hi-Fi in the US than in the UK.
