HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
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- blacknwhite
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HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
BOOK REVIEW: "DISK RECORDING VOL.1: Groove Geometry And The Recording Process"
BOOK CONTENT: Detailed vintage engineering info on Westrex mono and stereo cutterheads and amps, the Fairchild stereo cutterhead and amp, processes for making high-quality lacquer blanks, materials & steps for makign cutting stylii, etc.
DATES OF ARTICLES IN BOOK: 1953 - 1980
LENGTH: 550 pages
EDITOR: Stephen Temmer
PUBLISHER: AES (Audio Engineering Society)
PRICE: $40 US Dollars (If you are a dues-paying member of the Audio Engineering Society, price is $20 USD)
LINK TO AES SITE WHERE YOU CAN BUY: http://www.aes.org/publications/anth.cfm
REVIEW:
===============================================================
It's a HOLY GRAIL for anyone looking for harcdore technical engineering info on Westrex mono and stereo cutterheads and amps, the Fairchild stereo cutterhead and amp, processes for making high-quality lacquer blanks, or materials & steps involved in cutting your own sapphire cutting stylii. It gives you enough info that if you wanted to go and re-create some of these items, you might have a good chance of being successful, if you have, or seek out and learn, the basic required electronics/metalworking/gem-cutting skills & tools. It also has an interesting approach to building a hydraulic-powered cutting lathe in one article.
FORUM MEMBERS WITH TIME ON YOUR HANDS: Buy this book, read it, divide up the work amongst yourselves of learning metalworking / electronics / gem cutting, and provide for sale internationally, different sources and price-ranges of record-cutting lathes, cutterheads & amps (lower-priced Grampian-quality mono would be nice), stylii, and blanks!
60% of this book has complex math forumulas and graphs, physics, and other scary stuff for non-electrical-engineers like myself. But the remaining 40% has incredible cool useful material for anyone interested in having a go at building cutting equipment or supplies; it's like a "dark industry secrets giveaway".
A few sample pages:
Some improvements made to the Westrex 45-45 stereo cutterhead in 1959 to improve high-frequency response: Which of course requires some descriptive explanation of the cutterhead design...
Details on making and mounting in metal shanks, high-quality cutting stylii:
(Continued in next message...)
Last edited by blacknwhite on Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:58 am, edited 2 times in total.
- blacknwhite
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- Location: US
- blacknwhite
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 am
- Location: US
- blacknwhite
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 am
- Location: US
Process info for creating high-quality lacquer blanks:
Interesting "concept car": The Hydrofeed Lathe, a 1950s prototype with hydraulically-controlled carriage, and a cutterhead pivot on the same plane with the blank: (shouldn't matter if your blank isn't warped, but interesting looking)
Despite the many bad things about the RCA Dynagroove system, there were a few good ideas, for certain cutting applications...
Honorary inclusion (1926 Orthophonic article):
Takes you as far as your mid is willing to go into the complex mathematics and physics which led to the design of the 1920's RCA Victor Orthophonic electric cutting equipment, mechanical reproducer, and exponential "folded-horn" Credenza player: This was the CADILLAC of acoustic home reproduction of electrical recordings, sounding just like an electrical amplifier: If you care to wade through the math, it shows how to come up with an electrical equivalent circuit for the characteristics of moving mechanical parts, and shows the circuit equivalent of the Orthophonic reproducer, as well as a response curve graph comparing an earlier, generally-high-quality Victrola, to the Orthophonic: If you want to design cutterheads, and like math, you could use ths info for the moving parts:
Interesting "concept car": The Hydrofeed Lathe, a 1950s prototype with hydraulically-controlled carriage, and a cutterhead pivot on the same plane with the blank: (shouldn't matter if your blank isn't warped, but interesting looking)
Despite the many bad things about the RCA Dynagroove system, there were a few good ideas, for certain cutting applications...
Honorary inclusion (1926 Orthophonic article):
Takes you as far as your mid is willing to go into the complex mathematics and physics which led to the design of the 1920's RCA Victor Orthophonic electric cutting equipment, mechanical reproducer, and exponential "folded-horn" Credenza player: This was the CADILLAC of acoustic home reproduction of electrical recordings, sounding just like an electrical amplifier: If you care to wade through the math, it shows how to come up with an electrical equivalent circuit for the characteristics of moving mechanical parts, and shows the circuit equivalent of the Orthophonic reproducer, as well as a response curve graph comparing an earlier, generally-high-quality Victrola, to the Orthophonic: If you want to design cutterheads, and like math, you could use ths info for the moving parts:
Last edited by blacknwhite on Fri Jun 13, 2008 2:54 am, edited 1 time in total.
- blacknwhite
- Posts: 483
- Joined: Thu Apr 24, 2008 2:57 am
- Location: US
There are also some interesting systems that never became standard, like a precursor to the audio CD from the early 1980s, the "Mini-Disc digital cassette record", a small record inside a caddy, mastered by physically cutting into a small metal master disc, and played back with a phonograph stylus to pick up the digital signals, which are then converted to analog audio:
Even a 1967 article describing the "Phonovid" LP-image-recording system, which apparently never gained popularity:
Very Cool Stuff.
If you have metalworking skills & tools, and free time, let us all know when you get those alternate sources of cutting gear and supplies available for sale... It would be nice to have a larger availability of lower-priced "hobbyist/tinkerer" 3-speed lathes with separate variable-speed carriage rather than fixed-pitch, and medium-fidelity, but high-output, mono cutterheads & amps...
- Bob
=============================================================
FULL LIST OF ARTICLES IN BOOK: Click here to view the PDF from the AES site:
http://www.aes.org/publications/anthologies/downloads/jaes_disk-anthology-1.pdf
Even a 1967 article describing the "Phonovid" LP-image-recording system, which apparently never gained popularity:
Very Cool Stuff.
If you have metalworking skills & tools, and free time, let us all know when you get those alternate sources of cutting gear and supplies available for sale... It would be nice to have a larger availability of lower-priced "hobbyist/tinkerer" 3-speed lathes with separate variable-speed carriage rather than fixed-pitch, and medium-fidelity, but high-output, mono cutterheads & amps...
- Bob
=============================================================
FULL LIST OF ARTICLES IN BOOK: Click here to view the PDF from the AES site:
http://www.aes.org/publications/anthologies/downloads/jaes_disk-anthology-1.pdf
Last edited by blacknwhite on Fri Jun 13, 2008 1:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.
- filtersweeper
- Posts: 38
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- Location: Canada
- Contact:
FREE LIBRARY OF BOOKS
Oliver Reads' "The recording and reproduction of sound" 2nd edition, and numerous other books on valve amps etc are available to download free in the technical books/ audio section of this excellent website
http://www.tubebooks.org/ Spread the word
Or to download mr Reads' excellent book immediately click below (A must have for all trolls)
http://www.tubebooks.org/Books/read_recording.pdf
Share the knowledge, keep vinyl alive - it shouldn't be privileged information
http://www.tubebooks.org/ Spread the word
Or to download mr Reads' excellent book immediately click below (A must have for all trolls)
http://www.tubebooks.org/Books/read_recording.pdf
Share the knowledge, keep vinyl alive - it shouldn't be privileged information
Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Does anyone know if they reprint this book very often or at all? I would love to get my hands on it.
Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Ocassionally they do. You can also find it on Amazon once in a blue moon.
Cutting, Inventing & Innovating
Groove Graphics, VMS Halfnuts, MIDI Automation, Professional Stereo Feedback Cutterheads, and Pesto 1-D Cutterhead Clones
Cutterhead Repair: Recoiling, Cleaning, Cloning of Screws, Dampers & More
http://mantra.audio
Groove Graphics, VMS Halfnuts, MIDI Automation, Professional Stereo Feedback Cutterheads, and Pesto 1-D Cutterhead Clones
Cutterhead Repair: Recoiling, Cleaning, Cloning of Screws, Dampers & More
http://mantra.audio
- klikli_ska
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Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Thanks for the heads-up, ordered a copy.
Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Thanks for letting the community know!
Cutting, Inventing & Innovating
Groove Graphics, VMS Halfnuts, MIDI Automation, Professional Stereo Feedback Cutterheads, and Pesto 1-D Cutterhead Clones
Cutterhead Repair: Recoiling, Cleaning, Cloning of Screws, Dampers & More
http://mantra.audio
Groove Graphics, VMS Halfnuts, MIDI Automation, Professional Stereo Feedback Cutterheads, and Pesto 1-D Cutterhead Clones
Cutterhead Repair: Recoiling, Cleaning, Cloning of Screws, Dampers & More
http://mantra.audio
Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Received my copy yesterday. The printing on this run is darker than what you see in the above pictures so some of the photographs are dark and you lose some of the details.
- takeflight
- Posts: 2
- Joined: Sun Mar 23, 2014 10:42 pm
Re: HOLY GRAIL Book: "Disk Recording" w/ scans
Thanks for posting this! Just bought both volumes...