by Alex Balmforth
Back in the nineteen thirties, Westrex had a virtual monopoly on electrical recording apparatus and at the time, the hard truth was that Westrex supplied the benchmark systems… but they were agonizingly costly. It did not end there. If you installed Westrex technology, crippling royalties came as an essential element of the deal.
Equipping a studio was an expensive business. Columbia Records (UK. EMI) were in the course of fitting out their new Abbey Road studios. Anxious to avoid unnecessary expense they recruited Alan D. Blumlein, a talented young audio and electrical engineer. His brief was simple; develop a suitably different audio/recording process that would preclude having to install the pricey Westrex systems. Blumlein conscripted H. E. Holman and H. A. M. Clark… the latter a radio pioneer and to whom we have to be eternally grateful for the appellation ‘Radio Ham’.
The Columbia team was not alone in its quest; for in the States and Germany the race was on to usurp the fiendish Westrex. By nineteen thirty-one the Columbia team had developed a moving coil system which was sufficiently distinctive and far enough devolved from the Westrex system as to be granted its own patent (number 350,954). Moreover, Holman and Blumlein’s system was to prove superior and additionally possessed cleaner modulation than Westrex.
Coincidentally, in their experiments Blumlein’s team had stumbled on binaural (Stereophonic) recording. This involved cutting a groove of 45°/45° into the record surface with different modulating planes; in fact in 1933 they were awarded another patent, (number 394,325), and Stereo recording was born!
Unfortunately the team was ahead of its time and this groundbreaking discovery was dismissed as being of ‘no practical value’ …until the mid-1950s when, unfortunately for EMI, their patent had expired. It is wonderful to speculate that if the Columbia board had been in possession of the necessary foresight our forebears could have been bopping to hi-fi stereo!
In the mid-fifties battle commenced to introduce an economic, universal ‘industry standard’ stereophonic recording system and many systems were proposed. The system eventually collectively adopted was, yes you guessed it, Alan Blumlein’s nineteen thirty-three 45°/45° single groove modulation. However, with delicious symmetry it was the dastardly Westrex who had embraced Blumlein’s idea and from it developed the new technology. Once again British innovation lost out to foreign opportunism. The standard was agreed upon and representatives of the recording industry signed off the agreement on the 25th of March 1958.
Pye Records was the first company to introduce a stereophonic recording to the United Kingdom in August 1958. (A stereophonic demonstration disc.)
Initially Stereo recordings were slightly more expensive than Monaural and required a modified cartridge and stylus… but by the mid to late sixties mono recording was all but extinct.
Notes:
This piece of forgotten history is not well known, indeed I accidentally came across it and I had to make my own deductions … so raise a glass, step forward Mr Blumlein and enjoy our belated gratitude!
A Note on Stereophonic Recording
I have investigated the dearth of early UK Stereophonic singles and in the sixties it seems very few were issued. The technology obviously existed but it was not used extensively as it seems there was a sound quality issue. Apparently when the stylus approached the end of a (45rpm) stereo single there was a problem with ‘wow’ distortion; but an EP with its more compressed groove pattern evaded this difficulty. Henry Sayers, my sound engineer contact, explains that the same problem existed with early monaural 78 rpm shellac recordings. The Yanks were not generally concerned with this loss of quality. Decca experimented with stereo singles recording in circa 1961 the quality of reproduction was inconsistent - subsequently the idea was abandoned.
© Alex Balmforth 2008
(From Christopher Proudfoot, City of London Phonograph and Gramaphone Society, June 2008)
I think it unreasonable to blame Western Electric (not Westrex in the 1920s, I think) for wanting to earn money from their product. Apart from anything else, this, and their insistence on dealing only with American companies, had an interesting consequence in the purchase of the American end of Columbia by the English company (not 'Columbia Records', no such company existed). As for Blumlein's 45/45 groove being adopted in the 1950s, what else should they do if it was the best? The patent had expired, so it was in the public domain. Nothing 'dastardly' about that. Another twist not mentioned is that Blumlein's first job, in 1924 was with Western Electric.
I am puzzled as to why shellac 78s should suffer 'wow' near the centre of the record. Distortion and undue wear, yes, but wow is to do with turntable speed. And what is meant by 'early monaural 78 rpm shellac recordings'? Shellac came into use about 1897, but 78 rpm was not standardised until the late 1920s. Which end of this spectrum is 'early'?
At least one account says that Blumlein, so far from 'stumbling on binaural recording', had seen the need for it when watching an early sound film. It may be no coincidence that Westrex (as distinct from its parent company Western Electric) seems to have been concerned specifically with cinema sound systems. All in all, the story has more ramifications than Alex Balmforth seems to have realised.