Who recorded the voice the best?

[larryh]

Hi all.

This has most likely been around before, but I don't recall it. Playing some victors, brunswicks and a few pathe vocal records as well as the Edisons I have tried to evaluate the quality of the voice of each type. The first three were played on the Brunswick Ultona . The last on the Edison.
From what I could detect it seemed that of the three first companies Pathe seems to have a fuller more overall realistic sound. Something akin to the Edison, only louder. Some mulit voice Edisons have very fine definition between the voices and sound very life like. I found the opera duets on victor to be somewhat harsh when the singers were blended in complicated passages. I didn't do a really long test. I should find some late victor vocal from my collection and see how they compare. I recall finding that for popular or semi classical type records that some of the brunswick and victors did very well at clear and pronounced sound.

Any other collectors have an opinion on this?

Larry

[wolfe]

The Fonotipia company recorded voices as well as any in the acoustic era, IMO.

Alongside that, I'd say Edison and Brunswick.

Pathes can have deceent tonal quality, but many are plagued with distracting mechanical noise.

I'm not impressed with a lot of the acoustic Victor records, the earlier ones seem to be clearer and more foward sounding, later on they tend to get more murky and recessed, which can be very frustrating at times when you're trying to optimally hear some of the great artists they had on their roster.

[operabass78s]

I would have to say Edison. The vocals I've heard are incredible and lifelike and the diction is more discernable. The latter seems to be lacking on Victor and certain consonant pronounciations are very murky. As a second I would give to the European G&T affiliates. Europe seems to have been a few steps ahead with vocal and orchestral recordings. A few late Battistini discs I have have very rounded sound with some room ambience and noticeable overtones. This tends to be lacking on American Victor where alot of the teens vocals seem to be stripped of overtones (Hence giving us the "white" sound alot of critics speak of)

On another note orchestrals on European G&Ts are alot fuller as well, it is noticeably an orchestra and not a brass band or pick-and-choose chamber ensemble.

Also as mentioned I must give some kudos to Brunswick, especially on piano discs - I have a few acoustic sides which to my ear sounded like electric recordings until i researched the recording date.