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#1
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History Lesson: 600 ohm balanced line
wrote in message
... I have managed to piece together some basic information from multiple Google searches that 600 ohms originated from the POTS and was adopted by the pro audio crowd decades ago Actually, at the time the standard was adopted, the pro audio crowd *was* the POTS people, at least as far as electrical stuff was concerned. Nobody but the phone company was doing electrical things with audio. The phonograph recording world was entirely acoustical. Later on folk began messing with electrical audio for other things, like sound films, radio broadcasting and recordings. Much of that work was done by Western Electric and Bell Labs, both branches of the monopoly AT&T, better known as Bell Telephone Co.. A lot of audio equipment adhered to the phone company standard because it had to; radio stations, for example, linked master control to the transmitter by leased phone lines, so the consoles that drove the lines had to match the telco standard, and so did the inputs to the transmitters at the station. It was possible to make gear for internal studio use which wasn't telco-compatible, but practically nobody did, because that would limit its applicability, particularly if the station's console was all 600 ohm in and out for telco compatibility. It was really the 1970s before pro equipment began to be built to a different standard. Peace, Paul |
#2
Posted to rec.audio.pro,rec.audio.tech
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History Lesson: 600 ohm balanced line
On May 24, 11:09*pm, "Paul Stamler" wrote:
wrote in message ... I have managed to piece together some basic information from multiple Google searches that 600 ohms originated from the POTS and was adopted by the pro audio crowd decades ago Actually, at the time the standard was adopted, the pro audio crowd *was* the POTS people, at least as far as electrical stuff was concerned. Nobody but the phone company was doing electrical things with audio. The phonograph recording world was entirely acoustical. Later on folk began messing with electrical audio for other things, like sound films, radio broadcasting and recordings. Much of that work was done by Western Electric and Bell Labs, both branches of the monopoly AT&T, better known as Bell Telephone Co.. A lot of audio equipment adhered to the phone company standard because it had to; radio stations, for example, linked master control to the transmitter by leased phone lines, so the consoles that drove the lines had to match the telco standard, and so did the inputs to the transmitters at the station. It was possible to make gear for internal studio use which wasn't telco-compatible, but practically nobody did, because that would limit its applicability, particularly if the station's console was all 600 ohm in and out for telco compatibility. It was really the 1970s before pro equipment began to be built to a different standard. Peace, Paul This is a shame that a golden information like this is not documented. I get the feeling that there are many people who know the history but have never put it in pen form. I am not lucky enough to work under a greybeard mentor who not only knows the electrical aspects of audio, but also knows the reasons behind the way things are done. As the older generation retires there is certainly lots of knowledge that goes along with them. |
#3
Posted to rec.audio.pro,rec.audio.tech
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History Lesson: 600 ohm balanced line
wrote:
This is a shame that a golden information like this is not documented. I get the feeling that there are many people who know the history but have never put it in pen form. I am not lucky enough to work under a greybeard mentor who not only knows the electrical aspects of audio, but also knows the reasons behind the way things are done. As the older generation retires there is certainly lots of knowledge that goes along with them. ALL of this stuff is very thoroughly documented, much better than developments today are being documented. Take a trip to a good college library and look for old issues of the Bell System Technical Journal. Just about all of the foundations of audio technology today can be found in there. A couple years ago, in fact, I saw a paper on a new distortion mechanism that a microphone manufacturer had discovered. Then I found a 1934 paper in the BSTJ describing the same mechanism.... --scott -- "C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis." |
#4
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History Lesson: 600 ohm balanced line
"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message ... A couple years ago, in fact, I saw a paper on a new distortion mechanism that a microphone manufacturer had discovered. Then I found a 1934 paper in the BSTJ describing the same mechanism.... And that's probably where they "discovered" it! Common practice for manufacturers to not mention "minor" details like that when they have products to promote. MrT. |
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