Roy Wallace, who has died aged 80, developed stereophonic sound recording for the Decca company and designed the famous “Decca tree” microphone array which became the standard way across the industry of recording orchestral and operatic sound.
A meticulous man with a mathematical mind, Wallace — Jolly Wally to his friends — was also a bon vivant with an abiding passion for music.
Beginning his career in the days of mono recordings, Wallace’s reputation in the classical music industry enjoyed a late resurgence as 21st-century listeners rediscovered the “hiss” and the “natural” nature of the original recordings, absent in the digital world of CDs. |