In article , Bill Taylor
wrote:
While I agree in general about the "golden age" of radio, you are
allowing too much of a rosy glow to enhance the picture.

Most of the material broadcast would have been played off LP or
analogue tape; even then there were relatively few live broadcasts. In
order to get very good quality reception you had to live in the London
area; everywhere else was fed either by PO lines of variable quality
or rebroadcast feeds. This improved from the early 70s with the
introduction of the PCM distribution system.

My personal experience (and yes I did live in London at the time) was
that my own high speed tape recordings of Prom concerts sounded much
better than any of the published ones, which were either 3.75 in/sec mono
on quarter inch tape, or compact cassette, or gramophone records. They
were unquestionably the best quality available to me for home listening,
it wasn't necessary to tiptoe across the room while they were playing,
and you could hear a complete work without any interruption.

The best sound for home listening now seems to be CD, as radio has fallen
a long way behind, with no sign of even trying to catch up.

Rod.