[78-L] The Fading Sounds of Analog Technology

[DAVID BURNHAM]

The next generation of sound...digital and CD-based (or whatever
replaces CD's...?!)...will be mostly silence...?! Our "landline" telephones
will be replaced by Internet-based communications. Welcome to the
XXI Jahrhundert...and if you're over thirty, die as quickly as possible
since you are too expensive to keep alive in a NON-contributory
position...! I suspect t5his new generation will NOT be too happy
to support we aging baby-boomers...?!

Steven C. Barr 

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By silence, I assume you mean a total absence of media based noise, not an 
absence of music.  But it's a good question: where is the recording industry 
going to go from here?  The SACD made its appearance in the late '90s and was 
easily the most perfect carrier of music ever developed - it theoretically has 
less noise than a piece of wire, a frequency response which extends from DC to 
over 100 khz, distortion too low to be measured and each disc can contain around 
5 hours of high definition stereo music.  The problem is that this format was 
poorly marketed by SONY, (not unusual for SONY, they also messed up and 
eventually killed the superior BETA video tape format).  They presented a disc 
which contained the equivalent of an LP's worth of music, (40 to 50 minutes), 
you had to buy a special player to play them because they couldn't be played on 
a regular CD player, the discs cost twice as much as regular CDs and they had 
been telling us for 20 years that the CD was perfect.  All of the material being 
issued was from at least 20 years previous, (they had to use analog masters 
since nothing can be done to improve the resolution of existing digital 
recordings). I was very sceptical about the format for the reasons listed above 
- what's the point of having a frequency response of over 100 khz when I can't 
hear much over 14khz, once the water's over your head it doesn't matter how deep 
it is.  Well in 2004, I went to buy a new CD player but was told the only 
machines available now were SACD players, so I bought a good one, (around 
$5,000), and a few SACDs to try it out.  The first one I put on was a Boston 
S.O. recording of Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony from 1954.  I was going to 
compare it with a regular CD and tell the world there was no audible 
improvement.  Well when I heard the first few notes my jaw dropped.  I couldn't 
believe that these sounds were coming from a CD.  So I became an evangelist for 
the format and bought almost every SACD I could find.  Sadly, shortly after that 
point, all of the big companies pulled out of SACDs and today there are just a 
few European companies still making them.  But what of the future?  The public 
has become polarized over what they want: either a carrier which can contain 18 
hours of music on something the size of a dime or high definition surround 
sound.  The CD cannot fill either of those requirements and seems to be 
disappearing.  Of course another reason for the collapse of the CD industry is 
the fact that anyone can borrow any recording they want and clone it onto a 20 
cent CDR which sounds identical to the original, not like recording someone's LP 
on to a cassette, a process which introduced significant generation losses.  The 
SACD cannot be cloned so you would think that would be another reason that the 
industry would pursue it.

For a recording enthusiast, my life has occurred at the best possible time - I 
was born in 1942, in the 78 era and have survived to what appears to be the end 
of the era of physical recording media.  I hope something comes along to restore 
physical recordings but I have no idea what that might be.  I can't imagine any 
possible improvement in the quality of commercial recordings,  but that was the 
feelings of the experts in 1947 too, (in fact I don't believe the actual 
recording process has improved much since the early '60s, Mercury "Living 
Presence" recordings from that era are still recognized as the highest quality 
audiophile recordings available).

db