[f_minor] Howard Scott dies age 92

[Robert Merkin]

Not the slightest wish to detract from the work of Howard Scott, but most credit for the creation of the 33 1/3 rpm LP (Long-Playing) vinyl analog record goes to the Hungarian-born USA engineer and engineering executive for Columbia, Peter Carl Goldmark (1906-1977). 

Legend has it friends invited him to their NYC apartment to listen to a new recording of a classical symphony, and the loud and intrusive mechanical interruptions of the changing of the 78 rpm discs at "wrong" moments of the symphony drove Goldmark nuts. The next morning he assembled his engineering team at Columbia and told them they were going to invent a new format with huge improvements in music fidelity and length of play per side.

Goldmark was killed in a car accident and didn't live to hear SONY's digital CD format (its length chosen to fit Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Ode to Joy, a piece of Western music beloved by Japanese fans).

A cult of Vinyl Analog True Believers still exists, convinced that all digital music formats are a degenerate corruption of musical fidelity, an assault on the human music-loving ear. The Vinyl Audio Cult is strong enough to keep the manufacture of high-end audiophile vinyl LPs (and high-end turntables) in business today.

Where you find Vinyl Analog Cultists, you will also find Vacuum Tube/Valve audiophile stereo equipment cultists, who believe music reproduced through solid-state electronics severely damages and reduces the reproduction of musical harmonic tones. (The vacuum tubes for audiophile equipment are manufactured either in Russia or the Peoples Republic of China -- a legacy of their Cold War low-tek.)

One common critique of these expensive music reproduction obsessives is that they can prove they are scientifically and acoustically correct: Analog vinyl music amplified through vacuum tube equipment reproduces music in far superior fidelity -- but you have to be a German shepherd or Chihuahua to perceive the superior quality of the music.

Bob

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Anita Monroe 
  To: Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. 
  Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2012 8:50 PM
  Subject: Re: [f_minor] Howard Scott dies age 92


  Hi Pat,


  In this country not many people pay attention to classical music.  A very tiny few. And nobody knows any birthdays or dates of death of ANY of them.  A few people know about GG, but they know little about him.  It just can't be helped.  Time marches on.


  Fond regards,
  Anita


  On Sun, Oct 7, 2012 at 2:27 PM, Pat <pzumst at bluewin.ch> wrote:

    Indeed,  thanks to David Pelletier
    http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/arts/music/howard-h-scott-a-developer-of-the-lp-dies-at-92.html?_r=0

    ( OT: Please note that there is at least one mistake in this article. The first CD was introduced in October 1982 and not 1978 as the article claims. What’s it with journalistic standards these days ? Does Research equal Copy/Paste nowdays ? And that with the NYT ! )

    From: David Pelletier 
    Sent: Sunday, October 07, 2012 8:11 PM
    To: Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. 
    Cc: Discussion of the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould. 
    Subject: Re: [f_minor] GG on DRS2, german radio feature

    Howard Scott died yesterday 

    Sent from my iPhone

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