LIFE

Armenian recording engineer ORFEON in later years (source: Marcel Blumenthal)
Matrix numbers of the earliest Orfeon recordings all have an "X" prefix (although the "X" was at times left out)
During one of the interviews I had with Marcel Blumenthal, the son of Jules Blument(h)al, he told me that the very first Orfeon recordings were made in Germany. That is not illogical since there definitely was a connection between the Blumenthals and the German HOMOKORD company. It seems likely that the first Orfeon recording engineer (prefix/signature "X" in front of the matrixnumbers) was German, possibly a Homokord recording expert.
In the early twenties an new prefix, an “S", appeared in front of the matrix numbers.
Initially recordings with “X” and “S” prefixes took turns, but at a certain point in time “S” took over completely, and X-prefixed matrix numbers stopped altogether.
It seems not unlikely that the “S”indicated a new recording expert and even that the “S” stood for “Stepan [Balciyan]”, although there is no proof for this assumption.