REPRODUCED FROM THEOCCASIONAL
can be easily fooled into believing that when two products m easure the sam e then they ARE the sam e,and the buying decision then becom esa sim ple question ofprice.How brutaly sim ple,and incrediblyefective.
developm ent,afterthe abandonm ent of the single-ended triode, and the introduction of negative feedback – invented in 1928 by Telefunken – was the1947W iliam sonarticleinW ireles W orld thatlaunched the foundations of the single m ost im portant theory now ruling audio design: Specifications as a m easure ofsonic quality. This theory was quickly picked up by great m arketers like Harold Leak, Peter Walker (of Quad), A.Stewart Hegem an,David Haflerand countles others. This was, in m y opinion, the m ost damaging single-theory to be imposed on audio design. This suggestion that sound quality, and m easured quality (as exem plified by distortion, bandwidth, and noise m easurem ents as we know them )are directly related to sound quality becam e the m ost com peling theory going.W hy?Because itisverysim ple, and its very sim plicity m akes it the m ost powerful m arketing tool ever handed to the audio industry. It provides the manufacturer with “proof” that his audio product is “beter” than the com petition. W hat m orecould youwant? It has single-handedly created the ideological basis for thousands of minute, and incremental quality reductions. In part because it has m ade it pos ible to m ake products thatm easure the sam e atincreasingly lowerprices,often using technologies poached from other branches of electronics – which in the absence of any real research into music reproduction techniques – provides a powerful substitute, and excelent surogate to feed an unsuspecting, and gulible public seeking a m usic system ofquality.Itisthispublic who
To oversam ple ornotto oversam ple? DigitalAudio is the latest exam ple of how the high-fidelity industry has distorted the concept of research, and im provem ent.SincetheintroductionoftheCom pactDiscinlate 1982,the technologyhasentered into the usualnum bersgam e. 20-bitisbeterthan 16-bit,96kHzisbeterthan 44.1 kHz,24-bit isbeterstil,asisa192kHzsam pling rate,and so on.Inaddition to this,m usic isnow becom ing virtual,and very few custom ers actualy know whatlevelofquality they are downloading onto theircom puter.Claim sfrom the file-providing servicesthattheir files are stored using the ultim ate los les , high-resolution codec,coupled with the convenience ofa song atyourvery fingertips m akes this path a rathercom peling one form usic consum ers.And doesal the neces ary hardware,and software upgrades neces ary to play back these new file codecs m ake m anufacturers happy or what? Believe m e when Isay that a critical-listening ses ion com paring high-resolution files to a wel-recorded CD on a decentCD transportquicklydispelsany claim s of higher bitrates as just another m arketing-based ilusion. Conclusion,O rSom e Such Istarted writing thisdiscus ion piece in the firsthalfofthe 1990s, and ithasstayed onm ycom puterforyears,being takenout,and “brushed of” from tim e to tim e.The piece you have justread was intended as a “taster” to a m uch longerseries ofarticles
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