THose Old Network Lines Didn't Always Sound So Bad

[smedge2006]

We've been told that the top fidelity of the network lines that interconnected the NBC, ABC and CBS radio networks until about 1984 was about 5 kHz, with some affiliates getting as low as 3.5 kHz.

Listen to these You Tube recordings of early coverage of the JFK assassination. Especially WLW. Almost no noise, sounds almost like the network was originating from Cincinnati. The only item that sounds "5 kHz" is the TV report simulcasted from WBAP-TV (which was going from Fort Worth to New York and back to Fort Worth over the NBC radio network).

NBC on WBAP:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APNlzRqzTs4

NBC on WLW: http://youtu.be/Y8X3c1dwcz0

 

[Cincinnati Kid]

In November, 1963, WLW Radio was in the period of calling itself, "The Nation's Highest Fidelity Radio Station". Perhaps, in keeping with that, they used the necessary equipment to receive feeds from NBC with the best quality possible. At that time, they used quite a bit of programming from the network like the Saturday/Sunday show, "Monitor" for example.

 

[Matt]

I've heard fidelity checks on the networks carried by most of the stations I've worked for, and before satellites became the norm most locations did, in fact, get service perfectly equalized up to 5 kHz. That was guaranteed if you were a network affiliate in a medium-to-large market. That didn't exclude a station from getting a bit more fidelity than that...but 5 kHz is all they were guaranteed.

One exception to that was the smaller market. For most of those, the network would provide 5 kHz to the nearest connection point on the telephone company lines. The local station was responsible for ordering and paying for a line from the studio to that point, and quite often the station would go on the cheap and order a "voice-grade" unequalized circuit for this.

In some cases, especially where the local telco was not a Bell System operation, personnel did not know how to properly equalize a line, and you got what you got. The first FM station I worked for was in that situation, and for years its fidelity ended at 5 kHz or less because its studio-transmitter link was through Concord Telephone Company. The only time the station had less fidelity was when it went to network news...AP Network on a 3 khz voice-grade line.

Later . . . .

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I once worked for a station owner who got his start as an engineer at the NBC station in Little Rock. He once originated from Little Rock a feed to New York for distribution via the network. At the station they switched back and forth early in the broadcast between their local origination and the feed back to them on the network.

He said the network feed sounded better. I guess it is something like voice-over guys today installing a tube-amp for "warmth". The network gave the broadcast "warmth".

My theory is that we get used to a particular set-up and it becomes our "norm", our "gold standard". Back when radio network feeds were the back-bone of the industry (pre television and then into the early years of TV) that was the "accepted" sound, the "gold standard" of sounds.

Maybe it is my ears, but have you noticed that when stations today play old songs from the 1950s and 1960s, they don't sound the same today as they did back then. Today's cleaned-up, solid-state circuits don't impart the same tonality as the old tube AM stations. The audio chain back then was maybe like the oak aging barrel at the distillery where they make whiskey. A bit of flavor was added that we thought at the time was quite natural, and quite enjoyable.

 

[The King Bee]

Reminds me of the classic CBS Labs "Volumax" AM processors, and the earliest Orban Optimod AM systems. By the way, I still have some of the transformers and filters used by stations to balance and equalize phone lines for net feeds and STLs from the old Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company.

As far as the music, everything's re-mastered from the original 3M, Ampex or other analog tapes into digital form, so, unless you're careful to compensate for the warmth and range that analog provides, you won't recapture the sound in a digital transfer.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Once you discover the world of creating and copying digital audio files, it is easy to assume you have conquered the mountain. I guess if you get to work around the right people, or get to go to the best of training, "conquering" digital audio can occur rapidly. I've been putzing with it for 15 years now and every few weeks I learn finally how to do something I knew should be possible... but didn't know how to make it happen.

Warmth is very subjective. Some people write software that supposedly gives us warmth in the digital world. In trying some of them I find the dividing line between warmth and sloppy distortion in invisible and razor thin. So we pop a few extra dollars for a little amp that includes a tube that introduces warmth. And then you read in a magazine article that it is a hoax.... it has a tube but the audio never goes through it. The little box just helps heat up the room

But I have to say, "Excuse me, can we discuss this?" when you suggest a digital audio file cannot match an analog medium when it comes to range. The ambient, residual background noise that lives in analog systems puts tighter limits on analog recordings that it does on digital media. Or does it?

 

[smedge2006]

Since there's no ready explanation of why WLW's feed of NBC would sound so good compared with others, let me try one:

When the networks constructed their interconnection system with AT&T in the 1920's and 1930's, the backbone was called the "round robin" between New York and Chicago. Any station on the round robin could feed programming to the network simply by flipping a switch. I have to think WLW, with all its heritage, was on the "round robin." Maybe this infrastructure was still in place by 1963, maybe not. But it would make sense for round robin cities to have elevated audio quality compared to the cities on the branches, as they were all potential origination points for the network.

 

[Tom Wells]

King Bee is pointing out that making sure an ideal digital copy of an analog source means leaving some breathing room
when recording the analog source, so that peaks can fly properly at that stage.
You can compress and play with everything you want later, but the easiest way to ruin sound is overdrive that first
dub from analog.

And warmth is very subjective. I am still modulating audio on rf on the grid of a 6SN7. It is very linear.
It doesn't give the warm-n-wet sound I love. For that I'm still using an ART Pro VLA.
I'm working on trying to get rid of that.

GRC, what tube box supposedly doesn't have the tube in the signal path?

I grew up 35 miles out of Chicago, so the audio was good on the AMs, and you could hear the dropoff when
they went to network, but it still seemed like an honest 10kc even though it may have had a lot of passive eq to get a
meaningful peak.

Anyone remember how many db below std line level these feeds were?
You'd think the round robin line would have been run at a high signal and with rolloff compensation
at the origination to avoid repeaters and it would sound better.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

King Bee is pointing out that making sure an ideal digital copy of an analog source means leaving some breathing room
when recording the analog source, so that peaks can fly properly at that stage.
You can compress and play with everything you want later, but the easiest way to ruin sound is overdrive that first
dub from analog.

That is why when I am making a new digital recording I like to use 24-bit and 88.2 or 96k bit rate. Keeps and noise floor of the recording scheme way, way down there. Back the gain down so that the peaks are not it danger of clipping and the residiual noise is not crowding you from the bottom end.

The first step of editing is to look for wild peaks. These are likely to be clicks and pops if dubbing from vinyl. "lip smacks" and plosives if recording life talent. I zero in on the obvious "biggies" and manually edit them down to match the surrounding audio, or cut them out completely.

GRC, what tube box supposedly doesn't have the tube in the signal path?

I don't know for a fact that it is true, but in reading a magazine article I came across the claim that some of the low-dollar compressors claiming "tube warmth" were a rip-off. Since schematics don't come with such equipment it is hard to determine what is really going on inside the box. And many of the devices are not designed for user inspection of the "guts" to reverse-engineer what is going on in there.

I grew up 35 miles out of Chicago, so the audio was good on the AMs, and you could hear the dropoff when
they went to network, but it still seemed like an honest 10kc even though it may have had a lot of passive eq to get a
meaningful peak.

Yes, I think of Chicago as a town that had some great engineering-quality A.M. stations. But out in the hinterlands there were smaller market stations that sounded great, also. That was particularly true when the station owner was a First Phone and in addition to making a living from it, the station was his ego-stroking pride-and-joy. I worked for one like that in a small eastern Arkansas town.

 

[The King Bee]

Ah, the days when even the station receptionist and 15 year-old mailroom kid/coffee runner/gopher had Third Phones! I was so very disappointed when my First Phone certificate was "superseded' by an unwanted General Class certificate in the mail.

Out of spite, I still post BOTH certificates where required!

Tom and GRC, your discussion of analog and digital media is very enlightening...thanks for your feedback.

As far as the network radio feeds back in the day, the three pionering Louisville stations had by all accounts and to my own memory excellent fidelity, way above the baseline 5kHz. WHAS (CBS), WAVE (NBC Red) and WGRC (NBC Blue, later Mutual) did NOT scrimp on equipment or engineering talent. Everything and everybody was top-rank, and you could hear the difference it made.

 

[oldiesfan6479]

As for the network audio quality on WLW vs. WBAP, remember that Cincinnati
is closer to New York than Fort Worth is, so the Telco line didn't have to suffer
through as much degradation getting to Cincy.

 

[Kent T]

Facts,

Some rural broadcasters got what they got. In Oak Ridge, TN when engineering, 3.5 Khz was realistic frequency range off of Mutual coming in from South Central Bell. Until 1984, and Mutual went all satellite.

 

[davalvideo]

WBAP's aircheck is actually quite remarkable for 1963, as the version that I heard was recorded right off the board, and not off-air. I've heard WLW's as well and it is very good and very quiet....although the content on WBAP was far more interesting. WLW and NBC's Saturday coverage was for the most part, quite boring except for a few selected reports. WBAP, with its access to bioth NBC and ABC programming was far more interesting IMHO.

 

[unitron]

Wasn't there a computer motherboard with built in sound that had a 12AX7 or similar several years back?

 

[Joseph_Gallant]

Weren't some landlines for network radio and TV by the 1960's capable of carrying an audio frequency response of 8 kilohertz/kilocycles??

Those extra 3 kilohertz/kilocycles, if indeed it was possible to utilize them, would make quite a difference.

 

[Tom Wells]

Weren't some landlines for network radio and TV by the 1960's capable of carrying an audio frequency response of 8 kilohertz/kilocycles??

Those extra 3 kilohertz/kilocycles, if indeed it was possible to utilize them, would make quite a difference.

Yes, it makes a real difference even on AMs
. It was one of the differences in sound that let you know what the source was.

Availability was limited, I'm sure.

If the line was a fairly short local telco line, AND you likely would have had to pay Bell or whoever an extra premium for
equalizing the line to the 8khz.

Seems to me when networks upgraded feed lines, it was often noticeable on the air even though the local drop
to the radio station din't necessarily get re-balanced.
When the station finally did that, suddenly the network news started sounding amazingly clear...

 

[Mike Sheridan]

The worst quality network line I ever heard was ABC on WSEB in Sebring, Florida. It sounded like the may have used two tin cans and a string. Most of the lines in Fort Lauderdale and Miami had that nice fat little better than AM radio sound. When the networks moved to satellite wow it sounded like the guy doing the news was sitting right next to me. It was easier to hear the ruffling of paper.

 

[Darth_vader]

Re: Those Old Network Lines Didn't Always Sound So Bad

@unitron--

http://ixbtlabs.com/articles2/aopentube/
http://global.aopen.com/products_detail.aspx?auno=53
http://geek.com/articles/chips/aopens-vacuum-tube-audio-card-20021223/
http://www.techwarelabs.com/reviews/motherboard/ax4ge_tube-g/ (index.shtml - index_6.shtml)

The stock tube used in those boards is a Sovtek 6922 (Russian origin.)

"The tube doesn't look so romantic in operation as it looks on the ads. It doesn't give off much light and doesn't twinkle in time with the music."

 

[kenglish]

Now, I gotta go back down to the basement, and listen closely to some more of those old 16" transcriptions.