SINGULAR IRONIES

Singles Swing Again

Just as the 12-cm CD is replacing the 12-inch LP record, the 8-cm (3 1/8 inch) CD, shown here with its larger relative, may replace the 7-inch vinyl single.

The single record seems to be on its way out (and with it, most likely, the 45-rpm speed). There are fewer and fewer jukeboxes to play them, and more and more home listeners are switching to CD and cassette. As a result, record dealers and distributors are reluctant to stock 45s, and record companies have begun to drop them.

There's still a need for short, low-cost recordings, though. Some listeners want them for economy, others because they want only the songs on the single, and not the entire album from which that single comes. Record companies prefer singles when sending promotional recordings to radio stations: Singles are cheaper, and they give the company some control over which songs from the album the station plays.

To fill the gap, some record companies propose "cassette singles," holding just enough tape for a few songs. Stiff Records released such a single in 1983, Australia's Festival Records has released more than 100 two- and four-song tapes, and several major U.S. companies began releasing them on a trial basis this past summer.

Meanwhile, companies in Europe and Japan have been releasing CD singles in several formats. PolyGram West Germany has issued 16-minute discs on standard CD blanks; the disc area outside a small playing diameter is frosted. These sell for about two-thirds the price of regular CDs and only one-third more than "maxi-single" vinyl records of equivalent length. Denon has announced plans to release similar discs in Japan, for the yen equivalent of about $10, while Toshiba EMI has proposed a 20-minute, $13.33 disc.

Early this year, however, Philips N.V. (which owns PolyGram) and Sony agreed on the 8-cm disc, and Sony's Digital Audio Disc Corp. plant in Terre Haute, Ind. has already begun producing small quantities of them. The 8-cm disc is designed to hold as many as four songs, or up to about 20 minutes of music (the DMP sampler shown here plays for 17 minutes). It should sell for about $3 to $3.50. Telarc has also announced plans for the little CDs.

These discs should be playable at once on top-loading CD players (including portables) and on a few drawer-loading models (such as the Magnavox CDB650). Soon, all drawer-loading CD players should be able to play them-that would require only the addition of 31/8-inch centering grooves to the disc trays. Drawer loading players, and earlier machines with swing-out disc hoppers, will require a simple adaptor, probably a disc the size of a normal CD, with a 31/8-inch center hole that the CD single can snap into. Ironically, adaptors were also needed to play 45-rpm singles on many turntables--only in that case, it was the adaptor, not the record, that went into the center hole.

Another irony: The 8-cm CD single is just about the same size as the audio-only inner portion of Philips' CDV-Single, which has also been promoted as a way to fill the singles gap. With its lower price, smaller size, and ability to be used with existing players, the CD single seems certain to crowd its video sibling out of that particular market niche.

CD's Gilded Age

If you look closely at a CDV-Single, you'll notice a change in the spiral pit pattern about 3 inches out from the center of the disc. But there's an easier way to differentiate it from most audio-only CDs: The CDV-Single has a gold color, due to a special yellow dye in the plastic it's made from. (The dye is a type that does not absorb the laser's wavelength.) There are some golden audio-only CDs too-literally gold, since they use a gold reflective coating instead of the usual aluminum. So far, the only such gold discs I've seen are Mobile Fidelity's Ultradiscs. The company claims that the gold layer has fewer nonreflective gaps than aluminum, and that its noncorrosive nature should extend the disc's life. The first Ultradisc was a jazz sampler; since then, the company has announced a sampler of classical works from Russia's Melodia label and Will Power by Joe Jackson. Prices are about $30 each-but then, gold is gold.

Dubbing and Deterioration

Analog tape copies are never as good as the originals they're dubbed from, and most of us have heard the problem with our own ears. But David Carlstrom, of the Southern Michigan Woofer and Tweeter Marching Society (SMWTMS), has measured just how much deterioraton occurs in tape copying. His specific results apply only to the 15-ips Otari MTR-10 recorders he used, but the outlines of what he learned probably apply even to home cassette decks.

After just one copy generation, a difference could be heard on double-blind subjective tests. By the 12th generation, writes Carlstrom in LC-The SMWTMS Network, "it sounded awful." The first change to show up was an increase in noise. It jumped from -59 dB to -55.5 dB on the first copy generation, but went up only 0.9 dB for each additional copy step.

Frequency response errors accumulated quickly too. "An insignificant 0.5-dB rise in the master at 3 kHz" built up with each generation, reaching +2 dB in the third generation and saturating the tape at +9 dB by the 12th generation. Using the same two decks for every dub, as Carlstrom did, exaggerates this effect; the same frequencies are re-emphasized in each generation. Distortion stayed below 2% until the sixth generation.

Though both recorders' heads were aligned before Carlstrom's test, two different alignment tapes had been used, so there were slight azimuth differences between the two decks. As a result, a 9-µS interchannel delay was introduced with each generation.

"By the 12th generation, 10 kHz had rotated a full 360°." This caused no audible high-frequency loss in stereo, but by the fifth generation there was a loss of 6 dB at 5 kHz, and by the 10th the tracks sounded out of step.

Carlstrom's conclusion? "Even one generation can be detected by a sensitive listener. The third generation is tolerable for industrial work, but more than that is likely to be noticed. For perspective, the typical black-vinyl release has three to five tape generations; the typical cassette tape has one more generation."

On All Cylinders

If you're running out of records to play on your Edison cylinder phonograph (or any compatible two minute player), take heart. Cylinders are back.

They're not back in any big way, understand. The maker, Electrophone Cylinder Record Co. (32 South Tyson Ave., Floral Park, N.Y. 11001), molds them in batches of only 100 or so at a time, and their catalog recently ran down to fewer than a dozen titles.

When a batch runs out, however, they can mold more.

This wasn't always true. Like Edison, Electrophone started out selling individually cut wax cylinders (they still sell wax recording blanks). Individual cutting is an inefficient way to make recordings. Moreover, wax wears out and sometimes is attacked by mold or heat. (The wax used for cylinders, Electrophone reports, did not melt like candle wax when heated; rather, heat melted out some of its oils, rendering it brittle.) Electrophone next tried to replicate cylinders by molding, using modern vinyl instead of the inflammable celluloid from which Edison had molded cylinders. The problem with vinyl is that it can shrink, making the pitch of the cylinder's grooves a bit tighter than the pitch of the lead screw which drives the playback stylus along the cylinder's axis. This sometimes causes grooves to repeat and can conceivably damage them.

Now the company molds the cylinders from polypropylene. They anticipate no shrinkage and feel the cylinders should "last indefinitely when played on Edison or similar equipment," says Peter Dilg, a partner in the company. "What we now have," Dilg adds, "is, for the first time, a practical cylinder record." Mr. Dilg and his partner, Dennis Valente, make their electrically cut masters with a lathe and cutting head they built themselves. The diamond cutting stylus, says Dilg, is the only Edison part.

As of this writing, the company's catalog is divided pretty evenly between contemporary recordings made on modern equipment and old Edison originals. The modern titles include selections by Don Neely's Royal Society Jazz Orchestra, Vince Giordano's Nighthawks, Professor Blanding (a British ragtime player), and a duo composed of Ron Dilg (Peter's brother) and Jared Lee. The Edison originals include Billie Murray singing "Yankee Doodle Boy," Byron G. Harlan singing "Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie," an old advertising record ("I Am the Edison Phonograph ...") by Len Spencer, and "The Edison Liver Story," a joke told by Thomas A. Edison himself. Coming up are old Christmas records, Al Jolson singing "Swanee," and more.

All but one of these recordings are black and sell for $8.95 apiece (plus postage). The "Edison Liver Story" is a picture record, made of transparent plastic with a picture of Edison inside; it sells for $15. The company also makes custom recordings.

How big is the market? Dilg estimates that two million players are still around. "Most of them don't get used much," says Patty Valente (Dennis' wife). "The old recordings wear out, and they haven't been made since 1929. Now they're being made again."

A Seven-Dollar Steal

Rykodisc calls their new sampler CD Steal This Disc, but there's not much reason to-it's priced at only $6.98.

For that, you get 72 minutes of music, 21 tracks by such artists as Devo, Richie Havens, Doc & Merle Watson, and Frank Zappa. This does not, alas, presage a drastic drop in CD prices.

The disc is strictly a promotional item, for which each artist donated one track royalty-free, and the company is taking no profit. The timing is significant too; the release comes at a thime when the young company has just enough albums out to fill a CD with one sample from each. "The sampler is our catalog," says company spokesman Noah Herschman. The only Rykodiscs not represented are an album of Christmas carols and several of nature sounds.

Not-So-Neologism

Audiophiles now commonly refer to monophonic power amplifiers as "monoblocks." The usage is new (arising, perhaps, within the past three years), but the word is not.

Back when my father was a tot, the term was applied to automotive engines whose cylinders were all part of the same casting as the crankcase (like today's car engines), rather than cast and fastened to the crankcase individually (like most motorcycle engines, until recently). So originally, it meant many units in one block, not one block per unit.

Missing Goods

We recently received this notice from James Anderson Audio and have been asked to pass it along: On June 23, 1987 at Philadelphia's Academy of Music, several professional microphones and related accessories were stolen from the Effanel Recording truck; there is a $500 reward for information leading to its return. The equipment includes: One Beyer M500 ribbon microphone, serial number 21465, in box with clip; two Brüel & Kjaer 4007 microphones, serial numbers 973232 and 1040002, in KE0215 wooden boxes with clips; one Neumann KMR 82 shotgun microphone, gray, with windscreen (notched for Rycote mounting) and black leather sheath; four Radio Shack PZMs, two with XLR plugs on cable ends, two new in boxes; two Sennheiser MD 421 microphones, serial numbers 19817 and 19825, in one box, initials JA inscribed on bottom, one exterior repaired; two Sony ECM-50 microphones, serial numbers 22458 and 22459, in individual boxes with complete clips, initials JA on preamps; one C-Ducer transducer pickup, mono, in case, with power supply; six AKG stereo bars; one Shure A27M stereo bar; one Rowi microphone clamp, and six windscreens (for Sennheiser MD 421s, Shure SM81s, and Neumann KM 84s). All equipment was in a suitcase size case with silver metal exterior and light blue felt interior.

A report was filed with the 9th District of the Philadelphia Police on June 24, 1987.

If you have any information about the above equipment, please call either (212) 807-1100 (Effanel Recording) or (718) 643-1675 (James Anderson Audio).

Beethoven Booms

Classical broadcasters don't have it easy. They need extensive record libraries, knowledgeable program directors, and announcers who can pronounce foreign names, and they need to support all this on lower incomes than those enjoyed by their pop music counterparts. So Chicago's famous classical station, WFMT, started its Beethoven Satellite Network (BSN) in 1986, to feed low-cost overnight classical programming to stations elsewhere. So far, this hasn't brought classical music to cities where it wasn't already on the air, but it has allowed many stations to expand their classical programming.

"In many markets," says BSN's director of development, David Levin, "there's only one classical music source, often for just a few hours a day. But we make it easy to expand those hours, because we make nighttime programming cheap.

Depending on the size of the station's market, our service costs only about 75 cents to a dollar per hour; you can't find an announcer to work at that price, let alone build a library of 40,000 records." The Beethoven network is now on the air from 10:00 p.m. to 9:00 a.m., Eastern time, allowing West Coast stations to begin carrying it as early as 7:00 p.m. Some stations tape certain program segments to play during the day. Less than a year after BSN began, the service was being carried by more than 60 radio stations, reaching about 25 million listeners in 26 states, coast to coast.

You may be hearing BSN without even realizing it-the service carries little identification. "You have to listen closely to tell it's us," says Levin. "As far as listeners are concerned, we become the local station's product."

(adapted from Audio magazine, Oct. 1987)

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