There's a missing side to the article. The article focuses on the recording technology, but there was also the source side of things that were bespoke design to attempt to overcome the recording technology limitations, that also contributed to some over-emphasis on certain frequencies.
The resonator guitar and all of the various stringed instruments that had 'horn' features built into them to compete with brass instruments.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stroh_violinSlightly later, the advent of the electric guitar came about by the very same limitation of recording technology - to get guitar sound to compete with horns.
Way back from there, if you consider Gregorian Chant and early music designed to be performed in large stone cathedrals with very long reverberation times, the length of notes as well as the spectral arrangement of parts was designed to take advantage of the long reverb times.
One story that was told to the Detroit chapter of AES by Dave Clark and Tony Bongiovi, in a talk given on the floor of the main studio at Hitsville, quite a bit of the sound of the electric guitars on Motown records is down to plugging the guitars directly into the mixing desk through a patchbay in the wall just for that purpose. No amps.
If you look at this photo
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/attachments/studio-building-acoustics/188894d1282599964-motown-studio-dimensions-hitsville-studio.jpg The patch bay is just under and to the left of the studio window.
Here are the temptations and likely the funk brothers in a session. Take note where the guitar and bass player are. They are right there by the DI patch bay.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vh_Qg4CbM8Q/hqdefault.jpgIt was magic being on that floor for that lecture, listening to two of the engineering geeks from Motown's past. Both of those guys went on to different types of fame, Bongiovi's certainly more flamboyant. Yes, he is Jon Bon Jovi's uncle.
