How Good Was The Typical Rig

[Dan Gould]

This thought occured to me as I watched The Apartment tonite and saw Jack Lemmon putting an album on a little tabletop turntable stereo:

We all talk about how wonderful original Blue Note vinyl sounds, back in RVGs heyday.

But just how good was the average stereo back then?

I don't know, but my guess is that the greatness of those recordings is better revealed by today's high end stereos, and that probably even the low-to-mid-range stereos of today are superior to what most BNs of that era were heard on originally.

Maybe I'm totally wrong, but that image of the stereo in Lemmon's apartment got me thinking.

[Chuck Nessa]

Though it might not have been a "stereo", it would have had a tube amp.

[Jim Alfredson]

And point to point wiring... and big speakers! I betcha they sounded pretty good.

[Dmitry]

Horn speakers, tube amps ! Mmmmmmmm.

The most evolved components over the past 30-40 yrs. are the turntables, tone arms and cartridges. Those old heavy tonearms with 10++ grams of weight on the tip of the stylus are almost a herecy in retrospect.

[Harold_Z]

I think Dan has a good point and is pretty much right, although I think perceptions may be pretty subjective here. I can only speak for myself and I was a kid then. Basicly what I remember is one piece Mono setups in the early and mid 50s. A box that contained a speaker and a turntable that played 78, 45, and 33 1/3 records and was erroneously called a victrola no matter what company manufactured it. flipover cartridge.

My first box was like that and when I got a stereo it was almost the same except the lid contained a speaker which you would place in the proper position to obtain the stereo effect.

The only other hookups I saw were console type things that had space below the turntable to store records and were nice pieces of furniture. I think, but I'm not sure, they had beter bass happening.

Once I knew what was going on I got a Garrard type A turntable, a Heathkit FM, soem kind of amp and speakers and I became an audiophile. I had components.

....But never as good as a juke box !

Edited April 14, 2004 by Harold_Z

[Michael Fitzgerald]

For fun, nostalgia, and maybe even some educational value, I think you need to tour the pages of Down Beat for the series of articles by Charles Graham - here's one from May 11, 1961:

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"Stereo Shopping With George Russell"

George Russell is one of a small but growing group of avant-garde jazz composers. He started his big-time career playing drums with Benny Carter and has done arrangements for Earl Hines, Claude Thornhill, and Artie Shaw, among others. In 1957 [sic], Dizzy Gillespie introduced two of Russell's arrangements, Cubano-Be and Cubano-Bop, at Carnegie Hall, and they since have come to be well-known examples of Russell's talent.

He's taught at the School of Jazz in Lenox, Mass., and was commissioned by Brandeis University to compose a "serious" jazz work. His application of the Lydian chromatic concept has been called by the Modern Jazz Quartet's John Lewis "the first profound theoretical contribution to come from jazz."

Among Russell's albums on several labels, his Decca New York, New York, narrated by Jon Hendricks, and his Riverside Stratusphunk are best known. Riverside has also commissioned him to do a series that is expected to include six albums, to be issued over the next 18 to 24 months.

Acutely aware of the sound of music, Russell has had a medium-size monophonic components setup for a couple of years. It included a Bogen 10-watt amplifier, a Webster-Chicago changer, and a modest loudspeaker in a small cabinet. Recently, he decided to convert to stereo. In his words, he wanted to get a system "good enough so that spending more money won't materially improve the sound."

Russell said he wanted to get a top-grade stereo disc-playing setup including a changer, an inexpensive tuner, and provision for adding a tape recorder. As a take-off point, it was decided to play a couple of stereo discs on the studio setup.

He'd brought some of his own records, and put on his New York, New York. He worked the controls of the Fisher 400-CX stereo control unit to get the sound the way he liked it.

After he found the best balances of bass and treble (the machine has four separate bass and treble controls, one for each of the stereo channels), he put on a stereo record of the Count Basie Band with Coleman Hawkins, Roy Eldridge, Buck Clayton, Dickie Wells, and Lester Young playing Dickie's Dream. This extraordinary record, The Sound of Jazz on Columbia, was taped in stereo, even though when it was first released by Columbia after a broadcast in late 1957, stereo discs were still a novelty.

By setting the stereo function switch and watching the row of five different colored lights that shift off and on according to the position of the controls, it was possible to show Russell how various parts of the ensemble sound could be suppressed or emphasized.

For example, after the introduction, Young takes a typically languorous tenor saxophone chorus. Playing only the right channel first and then only the left, Young could be heard equally well, indicating that he was recorded in midstage. Later though, when Hawkins took a driving chorus, he came through the left-hand speaker quite clearly. This indicated that Hawkins was recorded on the same side with the other reeds. Switching to the right-channel-only position the brass punctuation and rhythm could be heard, but Hawkins was almost inaudible.

The same thing happened in reverse a moment later when Eldridge took a chorus from the side where the brass was located.

Russell was struck by this graphic way of showing what each section was doing and commented that it would make it easier for him to dissect an orchestration in listening to records. But he found that the Fisher, priced at $199.50, with its associated dual 60-watt power amplifier, at a total cost of $399, would be too expensive for him. Next he listened to a Scott 299 amplifier, a dual 50-watt unit costing $210. He liked the sound and the very flexible controls and decided to get one like it.

A number of good loudspeakers of various manufacture had been set up in the studio, so Russell listened to each of them.

One of the so-called high-efficiency types, which has a separate horn speaker for the middle range and a horn tweeter for the high notes, delivered extremely clear, crisp sound, but Russell was particularly concerned with the bass reproduction. He said he wanted bass sound strong and loud, yet firm and tight. He said that this, along with the clean highs was best delivered by the Acoustic Research AR-2As and ordered two of them.

Having selected the amplifier and tuner, he next compared the sounds relayed by three different cartridges. Listening through the Scott amplifier and the Acoustic Research speakers, he was able to compare them by plugging in first one and then another cartridge in the removable shells of the Electro-Sonic arm. This arm has shells supplied in natural chromium finish and in red, white, and blue, marking which cartridge is which.

Although he noticed slight differences in the sounds conveyed through the cartridges, he found that by a slight resetting of the tone controls on the Scott amplifier, he could adjust the tonal balance of any of the three cartridges so that it sounded right to him.

Finally, he chose a Shure stereo pickup. This will play both mono and stereo LPs. He said he so rarely plays 78s that he'll wait until later to get an inexpensive GE mono pickup with a sapphire stylus.

Because he has no need to synchronize piano playing at home with phonograph records, Russell decided he need not go to the added expense of having a turntable with speeds that can be adjusted faster or slower to match the piano's pitch exactly. He did want a changer, though, he said, "if I can get one that's as good as a turntable for sound. If the sound will suffer, I'll give up the convenience of a changer." He was assured that the current Garrard RC-88 ($59.50), which he'd seen and liked, wouldn't rumble when used with the other components he'd picked.

Russell said he had tried several tuners in his home when his system was still monophonic, but he'd found that some of them wouldn't separate all the weaker stations out of town from stronger ones nearby. He'd ended up with a Leak FM tuner that incorporates an electric eye for tuning. He'd found this feature useful in tuning the weaker stations and so decided to get another Leak tuner.

Russell's equipment:

Scott 299B amplifier - $210.

Shure M-3 pickup - $47.

Acoustic Research AR-2A speakers @ $109.

Garrard RC-88 changer - $59.50.

Leak FM tuner - $149.50.

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All sorts of big name jazz folks got some extra press coverage through this column.

Mike

[RDK]

Some of those tube amps were the bomb! George Russell's Scott is still considered to be very good...

[wolff]

I have and still use a Heathkit tuner, pre-amp and mono blocks (17wpc) that were assembled in 1959. I upgraded caps in the pre-amp and amps. Hoping to upgrade the pre-amps phono stage at some point. It works great and sounds very nice. This would have been an above average set-up for the times and still plays music better than a lot of stuff being sold today. Nice Mcintosh and Marantz gear was the shit back then, also.

Circuits in pre-amps and amps have not changed much. Parts like resistors and caps and wire are much better today. Tubes were better then than now. I'm using tubes from the 50's and 60's in all my gear.

[Jazzmoose]

How good is the "typical rig" today? Would the typical stereo today be a cheap shelf model, or a boom box or something? It's not like Lemmon's character would have been posting at the Hoffman forum if he was around today. Of course, with a young Shirley Maclaine around, I don't know how many posts I would be able to crank out...

(And isn't my goose cooked if the wife ever sees that comment and my postcount! )

[Dmitry]

I have and still use a Heathkit tuner, pre-amp and mono blocks (17wpc) that were assembled in 1959. I upgraded caps in the pre-amp and amps. Hoping to upgrade the pre-amps phono stage at some point. It works great and sounds very nice.

Did you do your own upgrades?

There's a reputable place near DC that I'm thiking of sending my Bogen to, right after I get the tax refund.

[jazzbo]

I have a 1959 EICO integrated stereo amp that I used as my main stereo amp for years and it was NOT an expensive item in its day and it sounds better than most of the not expensive items of any type today. Also, I grew up as a child with a Dynaco / AR / Electravoice system that my dad had through the seventies that I STILL MISS as it was a magnificent and musical system. A careful shopper back when Blue Note was "the shit" in the fifties and sixties could have been enjoying really nice sound.

[Dan Gould]

I'd certainly believe that a careful shopper would enjoy really nice sound. But my question was the "typical" shopper.

[jazzbo]

I'm hard pressed to get a clear view of typical, but I bet that the typical Blue Note collector of the time would have sound that was pretty good, maybe even better than some modern choices.

Just a guess til my time machine comes back from the shop.

[wolff]

I have and still use a Heathkit tuner, pre-amp and mono blocks (17wpc) that were assembled in 1959.  I upgraded caps in the pre-amp and amps. Hoping to upgrade the pre-amps phono stage at some point.  It works great and sounds very nice.

Did you do your own upgrades?

There's a reputable place near DC that I'm thiking of sending my Bogen to, right after I get the tax refund.

Yes, I did them myself. It was fairly easy because I had the schematics and owners manual and the values of parts I replaced.

As was said before, turntables/cartidges have changed the most. I could easily live with a decent rig from the 50's if I had a great tt to go with it.

[Harold_Z]

...Also, I grew up as a child with a Dynaco / AR / Electravoice system that my dad had through the seventies that I STILL MISS as it was a magnificent and musical system.

From around 1972 thru 1986 or so my system was a Dynaco, AR, and Cerwin-Vega speakers. It was a great hookup.