Ultimate Audio Revolution!

Gallery

Posted on by

Remember the Cassette Revolution?

Every few decades technical advances have claimed to improve the quality and convenience of music audio formats. After the ground-breaking unbreakable microgroove 33rpm LP, we saw the audio cassette, then the Compact Disc, and the Download, and Spotify. Innovation Never Sleeps. HiFi enthusiasts and jazz-hipsters alike were taken by surprise by launch of what some critics have hailed the Ultimate Audio Format Revolution: the Wax Cylinder. 

Maximum Revolution – 180rpm

Industry experts confidently predict 2024 will be the Year of the Wax Cylinder. Coinciding with the launch of the portable Edison-X wax cylinder player, advance orders for the new format look set to eclipse the vinyl revival of recent years, with sales of the 180-rpm tube set to overtake the 180-gram audiophile vinyl disk by Christmas.

Growth in 180-rpm Wax Cylinder sales now forecast to overtake vinyl

The launch of the audiophile 180-rpm wax cylinder has seen record companies scrambling to reissue their back catalogues in the latest most talked about innovation since the last one. 

Blue Note backs Back-to-Wax, with a new Tone Poet “Waxing-Lyrical”  Series

Mastering guru Kevin Grey is seen here at inCohearent Studios, putting the final touches to the first wax cylinder Blue Note reissue

Grey explains: “The 1900s wax cylinder technology has been brought completely up to date. The big advance is cylinder rotation speed. The improved melting point of modern wax permits rotation speeds of up to 180 rpm, four times the previous 45 rpm maximum speed of vinyl, allowing massively increased dynamic range. Combined with modern brass-horn speaker technology, and cut from the original master tapes, we think the 180-rpm wax cylinder is the future audiophile format of choice”. 

Are there any concerns about any environmental impact of 180-rpm Wax Cylinder technology?” Grey responded: The original Edison wax cylinder was made primarily from animal fats, including whale blubber, even baby seals. Our formulation is entirely plant-based wax substitute, 100% Vegan, and the cylinders are fully recyclable. The planet is in safe hands with this technology“

Just as the stereo revolution required listeners to invest in a stereogram, a 180-rpm cylinder player is required to take advantage of the super-audio performance of wax cylinders. The cylinders are not currently compatible with conventional vinyl turntables, though a spindle-fitted right-angle adaptor and 4x platter speed turbo-booster is expected to be seen later this year. 

Grey’s Blue Note Wax Cylinder production line, work in progress

Blue Note President Don Was today announced the entire Blue Note catalogue would be made available in this exciting new format in 2024, starting with the acclaimed Hank Mobley self-titled issue 1568, 180-rpm Edition. 

Competition Time

Be among the first to own this Wax Cylinder 180-rpm Collector’s Edition of Hank Mobley’s iconic Blue Note 1568, and join Ten lucky LJC readers.  Simply click the Like icon at the foot of this post to be entered automatically into the free prize draw.  Ten lucky winners will be drawn at random from entrants after the deadline. The future could be yours today, but hurry! Competition must close noon, Saturday April 1. Yes, this year. 

Let’s get Back-to-Wax! Get clicking, and good luck!

ADVERTISEMENT

Exclusively for LJC readers, special introductory offer! The ultimate sound quality Edison X 180-rpm wax cylinder player Limited Edition can be yours for only $999  (RRP $14,999). Reserve yours now, and get with the 180-rpm music revolution.

POSTSCRIPT

Thank you for being such good sports. I read the mainstream media have shied away from April Fool hoaxes this year, as they fear readers will be unable to tell the difference between Fake News and their regular daily reporting.  Perhaps they have a point. However, it is difficult to beat probably the greatest April Fool hoax of all time, the seven page supplement celebrating the small but non-existent island of San Serriffe

Like the best of hoaxes, San Seriffe took on a life of its own. The authors even received a “letter” from the San Serriffe Liberation Front (SSLF), in which the rebels stated how furious they were at the pro-government slant of the publication. San Serriffe  spawned other “Jet Lag” bogus travel destinations, such as San Sombrero, and  Phaic Tan (Sunstroke on a Shoestring) . I shall definitely be adding San Serriffe to my next holiday itinerary. Bodoni looks definitely my type of town.

Key to typographic play-on-words, the world of hot metal before desktop computers:

  • Island Name: San Serif typeface (without serifs)
  • Island Shape: Semi-colon, Upper Caisse & Lower Caisse
  • Pie Island: When you drop letterpress type on the ground
  • Port Elrod: A hot-metal strip-casting machine
  • Typefaces: Port Clarendon, Bodoni, Erbar, Perpetua, Umbra, Garamondo, Gill Sands, Gill Cameo, Monte Tempo, Montallegro
  • Ova Mata: Type that does not fit in a column (also called “over set”)
  • Woj of Tipe: “Wodge of Type” A bulk quantity of type
  • Printing Terms: Villa Pica, Pearl Island, Cap Em, Thirty Point
  • Flong: A curved papier-mâché matrix which helped create stereotype plates for rotary press printing

More music soon, at a leisurely 33 1/3rd rpm

LJC

23 thoughts on “Ultimate Audio Revolution!”

    • Glad you asked, Bob! (thinks quickly). Columbia will be issuing the Classic Cylinder Collector’s Edition of Kind Of Blue in Spring 2024. This Limited Edition will feature both the uncorrected Side 2 track listing error, and the uncorrected 5% speed error, accompanied by a copy of the original Certificate of Approval signed by Miles Davis. It’s sure to be an instant sell-out, so pre-order is recommended.

      The Classic Edition will also be available with a special Nit-Picker’s Edition, which will correct both the track listing error and speed error, though this latter will require a 189rpm rotation speed booster add-on to the Edison X cylinder player.

      Other exciting new cylinder releases expected in the Fall include the carbon neutral all-electric edition of Blue Train, though its release timetable may be delayed in the event of Autumn leaves on the line.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply ↓

  3. I, personally, welcome this new technological wave. Once you go cylinder, you’ll never go back to those stodgy old audio formats. And as a true audiophile, I’ve never been content with the zeptoseconds imperfection of my Derenville turntable. It’s sheer torture to my ears. With my new manual-crack Edison Cylindriola, perfection is literally in my hands.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  5. I have an Edison Fireside phonograph as well as a small collection of cylinders I bought in 2005. I even made an electrical pick-up using a ceramic phono cartridge so I can feed the sound through my, clearly outdated’ Hi-Fi system. I was clearly ahead of my time – you just can’t beat good old analogue audio – and no tracking distortion! :-O

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • I have a machine made by TEAC for transferring vinyl to CD It also plays 78s ( amazingly on the same stylus)and they really sound good on it

      I wondered what was the oldest record in my collection and it was infact my one sided Dan Leno record “Mrs Kelly “from 1902 , contemporary with the wax cylinders of the time

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply ↓

      • I’ve got a Blue Amberol of Victor Herbert and his Orchestra playing the Ruy Blas Overture that will also have been around the turn of the century, plus several other Blue Amberols, and a couple of black wax ones that will have been from the late 1880-1890. Gosh – I’ve rather strayed off the point of this article haven’t I?

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓

  10. I had the use of a player back in the mid 80s – a prop for MacGyver – and liked it, amazing fidelity compared to my Victrola but didn’t go for it because not much available due to licensing rights and the big record companies thinking of going into180rpm for themselves, though MoFi was negotiating for the rights to putting albums out as 360rpm two cylinder sets.

    Now that Kevin Grey is getting involved I might reconsider. Nothing like being ahead of the curve even if it is a cylinder.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

  11. Great to see the old Edison cylinder player. I have one the had belonged to my grandfather who, as a carpenter/contractor did work for Edison when he was in West Orange, NJ. Family lore has it that the player was given to Grandpa by Edison himself, but that’s unsubstantiated. Grandpa (1878-1962) used to tell of seeing Edison asleep at his desk, wearing his usual white shirt, with tobacco juice dribbling from his lip and down the front of the shirt. Grandpa would remark that Edison was a ‘crotchety old prick’ (perhaps due to his odd work schedule and hearing impairment.) I have a keen interest in my ‘Edison Machine’ and play it from time to time, especially for the grand and great -grandkids telling them, “I’ll put on a ‘CD’ (‘circular disc’) for you” , as they roll their eyes when I ‘fire up’ Grandpa’s player. They lose interest before I can tell them about my stint at Plastylite pressing Blue Notes (“What’s ‘vinyl’, Pop-Pop?”)…Alas, the ‘electronic age’.
    ,

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply ↓

  16. Just hoping the postal carrier doesn’t leave my first delivery sitting in the sun for eight hours like he does with my vinyl records! Oh well, every format has its drawbacks!

    Happy (almost) April 1st!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

Leave a comment