In my preservation class on Monday, I discussed the Bell Labs experiments
in stereo recording, back in 1930.  The fidelity was superb and the
stereo, breathtaking...How tragic the technology was not used to record
so many of those great musicians who could trace their heritage to the
late 19th Century.

I am familiar with the Music and Arts issue...the fidelity is superb and
for me, that alone makes it a fascinating document.  There is something
unreal to me about it...the quality of images and recordings of the past
suggest their time, yet to hear something that sounds that good from the
past brings to me a greater sense of its "being alive." a bit like taking
away the dust of the past and making it real...obviously, something I
have trouble expressing in words.

It reminds me of when I work on a restoration project. I can spend 30
hours or so trying to look through that keyhole to the past and capture
all that I can, a recording that might be 20 minutes long.

Karl