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?
rvpiano

Showing 1 response by yogiboy

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…