CRI听力:London Vinyl Finds Success in Asia

This was in a very poor state, the two machines together took around 3 years to restore.

In London Pete Hutchison describes how he spent 3 years sourcing and repairing recording equipment from the 1950s. For many years he ran the Peacefrog record label before approaching EMI about their large catalogue of original master tapes of classical recordings.

"So I had an idea that I wanted to license the tapes and remake the records using the original equipment. The problem was that nobody had the original equipment so I'd ring up the major studios, the big names and say look I want to remake this record from the 50s using the original valve equipment, cut it in mono, and nobody had that equipment working so I then had to go on this sort of pilgrimage if you like to find the original equipment, get it restored and up to scratch and in working order."

So far the Electric Recording Company, or ERC, has issued 15 classical titles with a usual run of 300 discs. Fifty percent of the company’s output is bought by collectors in the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.

The ERC's business has grown 60 percent year on year since it was established in 2012… so why is this cut vinyl so popular. Dave Parsons is a rare classical records dealer, and runs the web site classic vinyl.com. He says music recording in the 1950s was very different.

"Back then it wasn't about money, it was about quality and that's something that ERC are doing now. They are going to extreme lengths to recreate the vinyl LP in the same way that they did in the 50s. I've played the originals and compared to the electric record and compared and in most cases they're better, so they're doing a fantastic job.”

The Electric Recording Company is now embarking on giving the ERC treatment to jazz records of the 50s and 60s after signing a deal with Concord Music of Los Angeles. Pete Hutchison again.

"Concord are the rights holders jazz from the late fifties to early sixties, artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Bill Evans so we are looking to remake some of the very rare 50s jazz records using the equipment with limited runs, handmade sleeves, so that people can have a really beautiful copy of the master tape as it would have been new back in the day.”

These jazz albums will be available to buy from next year.

For CRI, I'm Catherine Drew in London.