Getting back to the sixties sound

There is a lot of talk in the music and Hi-Fi press about getting back to the sixties sound. This is probably due to the interest surrounding the release of the newly remastered Beatles LPs. Well it is difficult to get back there. The best way would be to buy yourself a refurbished mono record player of the era and to play some records which you have kept from the sixties. This is of course impractical. To play a new LP on such a device with its ceramic cartridge and sapphire needle would damage the recording immediately so this is impractical too - and expensive.

There are lots of youtube sites where the contributors play a refurbished Dansette or other type of mono record player. They give a good flavour of what it all sounded like. You had mains hum, poor frequency response with plenty of wow and flutter, harmonic distortion and deck rumble. Of course, there would also be plenty of snap crackle and pop from the damage caused by excessive playing with a poor heavyweight cartridge. And, there would be scratches caused by your friends when they decided to have a party with the record they had borrowed from you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKq2gZhZenY

The  sixties record player sounded as if it was playing in another room. Even the most humble turntable, amplifier and speaker set up from modern times outperforms sixties type equipment by a long way.

I discovered a way of getting back to former times the other day when I made an audio-cassette of the Beatles Past Masters CD for use in my aging car. I used a blank tape that had been hanging around in a cupboard for at least 20 years. This tape had degraded considerably. The result was a recording that had plenty of harmonic distortion and a poor frequency response. I really had to turn the volume up to listen to it in the car and the tape sounded as if it was coming from the next vehicle in the traffic jam.

I could not replicate the the mains hum or the snap crackle and pop. But, if I had taped one of my LPs surviving from the sixties it would probably have had plenty of scratches and damage showing up on the recording. All this degradation of sound took me back on a sentimental journey - fantastic. For most of my listening, however, I prefer good old CD.