[Paul Stamler[_2_]]

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

[[email protected]]

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.

[Scott Dorsey]

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."

[Mr.T]

"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.