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Dolby vs. pre-Dolby

This is a topic I’ve brought up a few times before but with little response. Hopefully this time someone will be interested. Many Agoners have made reference to the fact that records from the ‘50’s sound the best.
My contention is that with the advent of Dolby (created for the purpose of reducing tape hiss) in the early ‘60’s, a very audible degradation of sound ensued. This can be heard not only on LP’s but also on CDs created from analog tapes. There is an openness and seemingly unlimited space on the pre-Dolby discs that I feel is lacking on Dolbyized discs. It can be heard most markedly on orchestral recordings. Without Dolby, the full orchestra surrounds you and still there Is a great sense of detail. With Dolby a lot of the wonderful ambience is lost.
Dolby’s cutting off of the highest frequencies, although allegedly electronically replaced, eviscerates the sound and deprives us of the full picture.
Has anyone else heard this phenomenon?
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cleeds
5,970 posts
 
rvpiano
There is an openness and seemingly unlimited space on the pre-Dolby discs that I feel is lacking on Dolbyized discs.
I've never seen a "Dolby disc," so I'm not sure what you're trying to say. If you're referring to the tape that made the disc, how would you know whether Dolby was used, or not?
Dolby’s cutting off of the highest frequencies, although allegedly electronically replaced, eviscerates the sound ...
Dolby does not cut off the highest frequencies. That's not how it works. It actually increases HF (above a certain frequency and on a sliding band) to improve S/N, then decreases HF on playback by a corresponding amount. It's a complementary compression/expansion system.

To work as intended, Dolby requires that the record deck be properly setup for bias and EQ and that the Dolby circuit be aligned to reference level. Naturally, those conditions aren't always precisely met, and that's why Dolby has a bad rep among some.
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yogiboy
5,722 posts
 
Dolby A?
A Dolby noise-reduction system, or Dolby NR, is one of a series of noise reduction systems developed by Dolby Laboratories for use in analog audio tape recording. The first was Dolby A, a professional broadband noise reduction system for recording studios in 1965, but the best-known is Dolby B (introduced in 1968), a sliding band system for the consumer market, which helped make high fidelity practical on cassette tapes, which used a relatively noisy tape size and speed. It is common on high fidelity stereo tape player…
rvpiano's avatar
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rvpiano OP
2,669 posts
 
I’m speaking of analog LP’s produced by record companies in the late ‘50’s and early ‘60’s whose tapes were recorded NOT USING the Dolby A process. which had not yet been invented. And those master tapes were often used in the making of modern CDS.


Cleeds— I think your referring to the modern use of Dolby..

yogiboy == You’re exactly right, but your not addressing what I’m talking about.
rvpiano's avatar
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rvpiano OP
2,669 posts
 
What I’m talking about is a real phenomenon that many classical music listeners and others have heard and commented on.  The early pre-Dolby recordings do have a different tonal signature to those made with Dolby.
(When I say recordings of course I’m referring to the master tapes from which the records are made. Let’s not quibble over terminology.)
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