Orthophonic sound!

Orthophonic sound is not some alternative to monophonic, duophonic, stereophonic and quadraphonic sound. Orthophonic means that the recording was designed for playback on a light tracking (relatively speaking) and with electric not acoustic amplification. In short, Orthophonic is the brand RCA used. Electrical recording was developed at Western Electric. It was the manufacturing arm of big Ma' bell. This was a really productive engineering group. They produced the Vitaphone system, Westrex optical sound, single-groove stereophonic sound, indestructible home phones, productivity studies, and half-a century of other innovations.Western Electric saw the same problem in acoustic reproduction that everyone else did. The signal to noise ratio sucked. The signal was low and the noise was high. The noise came in two forms, inferior recording technology, and playback based on energy produced by friction. Western Electric solved this at each end of the equation. they and other companies were improving recording technology. Electrical recording was a series of steps, but playback was all them. There are some great phonograph manual scans here. Of course they were met with resistance when they showed it off to the record companies. Much like stereo did in the 1960s, this change threatened to make their entire existing catalogs obsolete. But the rapidly improving quality of radio gave them competition in terms of fidelity. this was not an innovation they could afford to shelve. Both Victor and Columbia experimenting with electrical recordings in 1924. Radio had raised the bar even at this early stage, and the two media platforms saw each other as competition.

**AUDIO EXPIRED**

In the 1950s, RCA Victor re-used the brand to introduce new innovations in LP fidelity with the name "New Orthophonic." It's about as original as "New England" and "New York." But it worked. RCA saw the brad as one that succeeded, one that kept them alive through the golden age of radio.

Reprocessed from Monophonic

The great conversion from mono to stereo was traumatic. In 1958 all AM stations were stillmono as were FMs. But in just a few years, home stereo systems were switching over to stereo even without a clear technical standard. The reason was that radio was feeling a little peer pressure in the stereo cabinet.

 LPs were going stereo. Western Electric had pioneered the Westrex process called 45/45, a single groove stereophonic system. The important part is that existing monophonic equipment could still play the Lps ensuring instant consumer acceptance. It worked. Western Electric was the manufacturing arm of AT&T for the better part of a century. They started out in the 1850s making typewriters.

In the 1970s, the now flat-sounding mono records were commonly rereleased with "enhanced" sound. this was also called "Duophonic" sound after the Capitol records process. These were marketed as stereo versions of the original releases. But the monophonic master tapes had no stereo separation. So they had to fake it. The stereo effect was created through a couple remarkably simple techniques. Some audio filtering was used to separate out certain sounds to pan them. This usually produced noticeable audio artifacts. Also common were slight adjustments in EQ and phase which is what RCa seemed to focus on. An offset of 20 and 50 milliseconds was another very rudimentary change that mimicked the stereo effect.Worse yet was over-dubbing. A small trio would be brought into the studio to overdub minor parts to add stereo sound to the mono recording. There is an abominable Roy Orbison LP out there with a dubbed in accordion track that is a testament to the general badness of this idea. Also interesting is that as Stereo picked up, these old mono recordings went out of print. It left both radio and record collectors forced to either play the new clunky "enhanced monophonic" Lps or move on. Mono was essentially dead by 1978, but enhanced mono dragged out straight through the 1970s. Some Labels carried Mono, ST (Stereo) and DT (Duophonic) notations, but the collections were usually a mix of all three regardless of labeling.