In the 1930s, a relatively small group of music enthusiasts, many living in London or New York, formed the audience (and the market) for what came to be known as “high fidelity” audio. One radio station in New York, for example, had special high quality radio receivers custom made and sold them to music enthusiasts in the listening area. Others experimented with improved technologies such as the now-forgotten Phillips-Miller recording system.
With the best electrical recordings, it was possible to hear many details of the music that were inaudible in earlier years. Sometimes, usually during classical music recording sessions, conductors would insist that a recording was not good enough. Standards of perfection–not only the quality of the sound but the quality of the performance–rose as a result of changes in the recording technology. Here, again, musical performance was affected by recording technology in subtle ways.
From the consumer’s point of view, recording had changed little. Columbia had briefly sold a long playing record in the early 1930s, intended to appeal to classical music enthusiasts. It had failed. The basic technology of the 10-inch, 78-rpm disc had changed little since its introduction in the 1890s. While most recordings were made electrically by 1940, most home phonographs were still acoustic. Newer phonographs were often equipped with electromagnetic pickups, and often shared amplifier circuits and loudspeaker with a radio, but they did not represent much of an improvement in sound quality. Ordinary consumers experienced the gradually improvement of recording technology indirectly, by hearing recordings played on the radio, or by visiting their local theater. Even the jukebox, which became popular in the late 1930s, was usually more technologically up-to-date than the home phonograph. That remained the story through the end of World War II.
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