Why Do Old Technologies Persist in Audio?

[Aerith Gainsborough]

My neighbor teaches piano and has several in her home, ranging from an upright to a baby grand. Our properties here range from 1/2 acre to 3 acre plots. I can't recall ever hearing anything emanating from another person's home.

Good for you. Most people on this planet don't have that much space to themselves., Go ahead and try an acoustic instrument in an apartment with immediate neighbors.

 

[rdenney]

I was once practicing the tuba part to an arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor and the next door neighbor called me to complain.

Well, it was midnight. And I was certainly was doing a disservice to Bach.

Years later, in a different neighborhood (different state, actually), the wife across the street sent her husband to complain about the tuba playing. It was 8:30 PM. Really? I asked him what band kids in the neighborhood were supposed to do for practice? His wife wanted to leave the windows open and not be disturbed by the sounds of humanity. He looked embarrassed.

I now live in the country, and the foxes have meetings with the deer to complain about the music racket. Even the turkeys and groundhogs signed the petition, which in the latter case is pretty ungrateful considering the effort I go to to provide their dinner.

I just can’t get a break.

Rick “music lovers everywhere!” Denney

 

[EJ3]

Good for you. Most people on this planet don't have that much space to themselves., Go ahead and try an acoustic instrument in an apartment with immediate neighbors.

You act like there is no choice, only luck: I lived in an above the garage apartment in one place or another from 1957-1965. And in apartments & condos from 1975-1984 and from 2001-2018 I lived on a ship while maintaining an apartment on an Island for my wife (visiting her when my ship was there. But my wife & I have worked hard all our lives to get away and stay away from the apartment/condo lifestyle, scrimping, sacrificing & saving so that we can have our own single house (with to 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms and a nice kitchen). It is only a little larger than an apartment with the same features. But it is ours. And, when we pass, it will be our son's. The places that we have lived are Austria, China, Saipan, Guam, other islands in the Indian Ocean & the Western Pacific, Thailand, Australia and the USA. I choose to live outside of the city as opposed to in the city. This is not luck. It is through hard work, determination and choice. And my wife's hard work, determination & choice. We work hard together to make sure that we have a little bit of space around us. That is our choice. NOT LUCK. Most of my friends have also lived in apartments/condos before. It is less convenient in many ways. (No streaming, intermittent internet, no city water, take your own trash to the dump, a little piece of land to mow/fertilize & otherwise take care of weekly. But we can grow our own vegetables/fruits, etc and barter with neighbors for different ones. Others have more land and animals that they slaughter, so we can purchase fresh meat. Life is hard. This is hard to do too. But it is a choice of lifestyle.

 

[Newman]

Oh goodness me

 

[Newman]

I now live in the country, and the foxes have meetings with the deer to complain about the music racket. Even the turkeys and groundhogs signed the petition, which in the latter case is pretty ungrateful considering the effort I go to to provide their dinner.

I just can’t get a break.

Tuba Player: Did you hear my last recital?
Friend: I hope so.

 

[Robin L]

Tuba Player: Did you hear my last recital?
Friend: I hope so.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

I was once practicing the tuba part to an arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor and the next door neighbor called me to complain.

Well, it was midnight. And I was certainly was doing a disservice to Bach.

Years later, in a different neighborhood (different state, actually), the wife across the street sent her husband to complain about the tuba playing. It was 8:30 PM. Really? I asked him what band kids in the neighborhood were supposed to do for practice? His wife wanted to leave the windows open and not be disturbed by the sounds of humanity. He looked embarrassed.

I now live in the country, and the foxes have meetings with the deer to complain about the music racket. Even the turkeys and groundhogs signed the petition, which in the latter case is pretty ungrateful considering the effort I go to to provide their dinner.

I just can’t get a break.

Rick “music lovers everywhere!” Denney

Play a tuba, go to jail.

 

[MattHooper]

Tuba Player: Did you hear my last recital?
Friend: I hope so.

That's hilarious.

Though I am actually a fan of brass and the larger woodwind instruments played low in their power range. I find it thrilling.

 

[egellings]

I think that for the end point listener, 16 bits done right will be as good as it needs to get.

 

[egellings]

I suspect that the average sound equipment consumer would not want to deal with tubes at all. Tube amps & preamps are more like pets than equipment to those who like them.

 

[egellings]

Exactly! Tubes are fun, clunky or not.

 

[mhardy6647]

Exactly! Tubes are fun, clunky or not.

especially at this time of year.

 

[fpitas]

Tubes are fun to design with. And a good tube amp is perfectly listenable. Big, hot, and heavy maybe. But let's not forget, tubes are billed as audiophile, versus hard, clunky SS amps. Whatever the truth of that objectively, some people will want to believe.

Now the people trying to bring back quasi-complementary push-pull: they're just crazy!

 

[RammisFrammis]

Asking why old technologies still exist is really a silly question. Might as well ask why we allow old people to still exist.

 

[fpitas]

Asking why old technologies still exist is really a silly question. Might as well ask why we allow old people to still exist.

Some of us fight back! But seriously. Even young people sometimes prefer vinyl and tubes.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Of course the new technology is cheaper, more reliable, measures better, and is better but the limits of human hearing make the perceived improvement a lot less than you would think. This encourages people to hang on to old equipment and allows obsolete technology to persist in the market.

Totally with you with this comment, we have had more than good enough for a very long time and the improvements have been about "cheaper, more reliable, measures better" and convenient, but better sound, better music, not so much. So yes, you can reach back in time and use "old" technologies and be fulfilled.

 

[Jim Shaw]

If I ever get nostalgic for obsolete tech, I go upstairs and put an old, horn-recorded shellac 78 on the Victrola. (Shouldn't great old audio playback employ a hand crank?) In less than 15 seconds, I long for the modern, high resolution, solid state recording and playback gear downstairs in the living room.

 

[Jim Shaw]

If I ever get nostalgic for obsolete tech, I go upstairs and put an old, horn-recorded shellac 78 on the Victrola. (Shouldn't great old audio playback employ a hand crank?) In less than 15 seconds, I long for the modern, high resolution, solid state recording and playback gear downstairs in the living room.

A similar thing happens when I play an old analog tape on the romping-stomping 3/4 horsepower RT707 deck (c. 1970). Sounds good for 1970, but not for 2022. Same for lots of the thousand or so LPs in the bookcase shelves. Not bad for 1960-1980, but not much against the current SOTA digital files.
Those were good years, but I'm way past that, and phones with dials. And as an electrical engineer, the only vacuum tubes in my house are the magnetrons in two microwave ovens. Tubes were only good when that's all we had. I moved on decades ago.
Maybe nostalgia feels good to some, but it doesn't sound very good -- unless you're captivated by its flaws. In the future, I expect new technologies to come to audio playback. Bring them on. Like miniDiscs, DSD, MQA, and SACD, many will languish quickly. So I won't be an early adopter (with my money). Like DAC tech is currently, new technologies might cost $3500 on day two from PSAudio or Chord. I'll wait until the tech develops, for example, into a great DAC that sells for $150, as they now do.

 

[composer]

I still go on buying CDs
When I was young(er) I used to think "if this one costed 8 rather 20 I'd probably buy it.
Now that they cost 8 or even less, I do as much... even if I already have the Flac counterpart, often even 24_96, in the HD.

CD, rather than the ritual, gives the limit. You must commit to listen and understand from here to here. These 40-79 minutes set by the composer, group, singer, performer, in such order, with such itinerary in the mind of the creator(s)

Such limit is lost through liquid playlists. You are listening the whole whatever starting from nowhere and ending anywhere.
When I have whole discographies set on a playlist I use to put a sinus sound in between as a border from one album to another.

Indeed, 16/44 is a way reasonable quality even if I understand that in qualified contest you can easily tell the difference with 24/96.

I broadly use liquid files of course, but I will never quit buying CDs. They remind me that music starts here and ends there.
Without mind borders there isn't true knowledge, but confusion.

 

[levimax]

Indeed, 16/44 is a way reasonable quality even if I understand that in qualified contest you can easily tell the difference with 24/96.

It is NOT clear at all that 16/44 can be distinguished from 24/96 in a level matched blind test. Try it yourself, take a 24/96 file that you know is legit and not up sampled and dither it down to 16/44 and then use a ABX tool like foobar2000 ABX to see if you can hear any difference. I certainly can not. While some claim they can hear a difference and there are some studies that seem to imply some people may be able to tell the difference the evidence is not at all conclusive. In any case "easily tell the difference" is not correct.