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I’ve been skimming the book From Tin Foil To Stereo: Evolution of the Phonograph by Oliver Read and Walter L. Welch by courtesy of a friend whose knowledge of the origins of the record industry far exceeds mine. I’m gobsmacked that the disparity in quality between England and the US goes back to the beginning of the history of recording, and that the situation of out of print items in the US available as European pressings is not even remotely new. Even bickering over fidelity and format, which I had long assumed to be peculiar to members of the Steve Hoffman compound, dates decades before my birth.
Two suggestive passages:
337:
“Of course it is not hard to impress an industry which is not troubled much by competition. I mean by that, according to my estimate, over 90% of all record sales accrue to the benefit of the same world-wide corporate family.”—A.J. Franck, Phonograph Monthly Review, July 1931
338:
“A portion of all record and equipment sales eventually went to the same top echelon coporations; therefore, it was expedient to deny Americans superior equipment at lower prices because they were willing to pay more for less efficient equipment.”
