My Decca Book is Finally Published - FIM Decca:Supreme Stereophonic Legacy

astrotoy

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Today marks the official debut of my book on the golden age of Decca records, published by Winston Ma and First Impression Music, Decca:Supreme Stereophonic Legacy. It is being released first at the Hong Kong Audio Show this weekend and then in the US about the 15th of August.

Gary Koh has heard the test pressings of the four FIM CD's that accompany the book and has made a few comments in another WBF thread.

Several years ago, Winston told me that he had talked to Decca (Part of Universal Records) about doing a book about the great era of stereo recordings done by them from the late 1950's to about 1980, when digital recording displaced analog. However, he said he was too busy to do the book. We talked about my interest in Decca and I gave him a few references to follow.

About 18 months ago Winston called me and asked whether I would be interested in writing the book. As some of you know, Winston has has some major health issues and felt he was not able to do the project alone. We spent several days together at his home in Redmond, talking about the scope of the project and taking breaks listening to his wonderful system. I began writing in earnest in May of last year, researching and interviewing, first in London, with several of the retired Decca staff, engineers and others. The first draft was completed in about 6 months, and followed by extensive editing and graphical work, including over 180 photos, many from the private collections of the Decca staff and the Decca archives.

No work of FIM (Winston's company) would be complete without superb CD's, and Winston had Michael Bishop and Robert Friedrich (both multi-Grammy winners) of Five/Four Productions remaster excerpts of some of the greatest Decca recordings of that era. As anyone knows about the sound quality of FIM's productions and Winston's insistence on only the very best, the sonics of these CD's (at least in the test pressings that I have) are IMHO superior to the best that FIM has ever produced.

The book is being issued in a two volume set, the first, 260 pages in length is the main book, while the second, 100 pages long contains extensive liner notes and the four CD's. I was responsible for writing both the book and liner notes. the latter also including some of Winston's notes from the original FIM release of several of the albums and the original Decca liner notes, and Winston produced the entire project, with Michael and Robert doing the engineering on the CD's.

Both Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds are featuring the book and CD's at a discounted pre-publication price and details on the musical content are on their websites.

The good news is that the Asia distributor for FIM has ordered the vast majority of the books for the Asia market and the resulting bad news is that I haven't received any copies yet. However, more are on the way and Elusive Disc and Acoustic Sounds should have them by mid-month.

I have attached the flyer for the book. The size of the book is 7.5" square.

Larry
 

Attachments

  • DECCA Book Ad_Eng.pdf
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puroagave

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Sep 29, 2011
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Congrats Larry and thanks for the heads up on the pre-sale, It looks like a must have.
 

Ronm1

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Thanks for posting.
 

JackD201

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Congratulations Larry! I'll order a book today!
 

LL21

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Congratulations...fantastic work and thanks for your dedication which many of us audiophiles get to appreciate every day.
 

asiufy

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Hi,

Do you think you'll have them for sale at the SF audio show, next week?


alexandre
 

garylkoh

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Sep 6, 2010
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As Larry said, Winston sold the entire first production to the Asian distributor for the Hong Kong Audio Show that is this weekend. He hasn't got any copies, I haven't got any copies either.

However, I understand that there is one guy with some limited stock at the show. I will get my copy this week, and will play it at the show.
 

astrotoy

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May 24, 2010
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Thanks, Gary. We live near SF, but unfortunately won't make it to the show this year. We are down in LA for a few weeks helping our daughter with our new grandson who is one week old today. Winston is sending me my first copy also - he finally got a few shipped Fedex from Hong Kong.

Larry
 

curbfeeler

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Apr 19, 2012
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The book and CDs are available for preorder from Music Direct as well, but with free shipping.
Congratulations on the new family member, Larry. Oh, and on the book, too.

Stan
 

curbfeeler

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Apr 19, 2012
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OOPS! preorders do not qualify for free shipping.

The book and CDs are available for preorder from Music Direct as well, but with free shipping.
Congratulations on the new family member, Larry. Oh, and on the book, too.

Stan
 

MadFloyd

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I finally got a copy of this set. It's beautiful. The mastering of the CDs is really, really, really good. Too bad there is only 4 CDs - the entire Decca catalog should be remastered by these guys.

The book is fantastic too - great job, Larry. I'm not finished reading it yet, but really enjoying it so far.
 

bonzo75

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Hi Larry, this is amazing. Congrats. I was telling did about you yesterday, your classical knowledge and his TT knowledge will be well mated
 

astrotoy

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Thanks for the kind words, guys. Writing the book was a lot of fun. Especially having long talks with the old time Decca Engineers - lots of stories. Many of them didn't make the book (participants are still alive!! and Decca-Universal didn't want any problems.) They were so generous in sharing pictures from their private collections, too. I still try to have lunch with some of them when I go back to London for my annual visit.

Larry
 

LL21

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I just ordered a copy...very excited. Looking forward to this! Fantastic collection of music! Thanks for all the hard work!!!
 

c1ferrari

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Hi Larry,

Fabulous. As a nacent, amateur recordist...is there discussion dedicated to the "Decca Tree" recording chain :confused:

Belated congratulations
:D
 

astrotoy

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May 24, 2010
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Hi Larry,

Fabulous. As a nacent, amateur recordist...is there discussion dedicated to the "Decca Tree" recording chain :confused:

Belated congratulations
:D

Hi Sam, I have a little on the history of the Decca tree, including some pictures of the different variations. However, Michael Gray's writing on the subject is much more complete and definitive. You can find it on the web.

http://www.polymathperspective.com/?p=2484

I tried to focus on the people - engineers, producers and artists, and the different venues, and lots of behind the scenes stories.

Larry
 

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