REPRODUCED FROM THEOCCASIONAL
Progres isnota straightline and thissituation has repeated itself num erous tim es over the history of recorded sound, and as a result, m usic recording,and its as ociated recording, and reproduction equipm ent, has fluctuated greatly, and peaked in several areas of performance only for the im provem ents/developm ents to be reversed due to the lim itations of another branch or branchesofthe system .Itis,in m y opinion,of the utm ost im portance to study the historical developm ent of each branch of the m usic reproduction chain,in orderto ‘glean of’the best (m ost interesting?) developm ents, and then resurect them to com pare the overal resultwith whatisconsidered the ‘state ofthe art’ today. It makes for an interesting com parison,and teaches im portantles ons in whym ethods,and technologieswerediscarded – m ostly,Iam sory to say – due to econom ic considerationsratherthan qualitative ones. To try to visualize the argum ent, I have constructed this chart to atempt to dem onstrate how I see the peaks, dips and troughsofdevelopm entin the five m ain areas of the m usic reproduction chain. Firstly to dem onstrate the relative lackofrealprogres in sound qualityinabsoluteterm s(so m uchis,and has been m ade of the High-End Audio industry’s obsesion with “State-of-the-Art” technology, that this serves as a potent rem inderofthe num erousareaswhere curent technology is anything but“State-of-the-Art”), in order to analyze why,historicaly speaking, developm ents took a turn for the worse. Remember this is very broad historical/em pirical overview, not a detailed study.A book wil be writen on the subjectif ever I find the tim e, so here are the five “branches”asIwould define them . technology is anything but“State-of-the-Art”), in order to analyze why,historicaly speaking, developm ents took a turn for the worse. Remember this is very broad historical/em pirical overview, not a detailed study.A book wil be writen on the subjectif ever I find the tim e, so here are the five “branches”asIwould define them .
To support,and understand thethesisitisim portantto stres that the positions of each branch represents whatshould be considered the bestefortavailable at the tim e, not neces arily what was wel known or prom inentlym arketed.A view hasalso been taken on the ideas, and principles behind the equipm ent in question, so that advances in technique – when applied to the older ideas – have also been considered. The pointssystem isapplied to sim plify the overview, and alow for com parison between the decades in absolute term s, and as can be seen we have not m oved forward since the 1950s. In fact, we have reversed m ostofthe absolute peaksofdevelopm ent relating to the position ofeach branch wave on the above scale. It is fairly easy to see that the audio quality in itsabsolute form peaked around 1960,and thatthiswasprim arilydueto thesuperiorqualityofthe recording,and software quality,the decline since then has a num ber ofexplanations,som e ofwhich Iwil atem ptto addres in the restofthises ay. W ith the benefit of hindsight both recording, and software technologyreached apeakduring the 1950s, so by early 1960s recording, and software quality peaked,whichgoessom ewaytowardsexplaining why records,and recordingsfrom thisperiod are so highly desired,and prized bytoday’sm usiclovers,colectors, and audiophiles(don’tyou justhate thatword). The addictive Long Playm icrogroove. Relative to the quality standards of recording, and software m anufacture,the replay equipm entwasata
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