HIFI cylinders from 110 years ago
Listening to early cylinders up to about 1910 there seemed to be some Quality about them that was not present on other acoustic recordings. Using super equalization they can be made to sound much better and more suited to modern ears. Frequency response can often be from 100 to 7khz. This only works on the 2 minute cylinders and some of the latter 4 minute ones but after "improvements" around 1913 frequency response was traded off for less distortion and a more consistent sound on the equipment of the day using horns. Little did they know that the small amount of Fi that can be utilized with electric reproduction and equalization wast lost and up till the time of electric recordings in 1925 we have,with few exceptions been left with 300 to 2.5Khz Honky sounding records that are hardly worth listening to despite the wealth of musical talent of the time.
This process has been done with analogue equipment so no digital artifacts
will be present apart from the original very well done straight transfers form the University Of Santa Barbara cylinder archive.
If you want to hear the original recordings go here.
http://cylinders.library.ucsb.edu/