Why Do Old Technologies Persist in Audio?

[Kal Rubinson]

Oboe: the bad wind that never blows good.

Oboe: it's an ill wind that blows no good.
or
Oboe: it's an ill wind that no one blows good.

 

[MattHooper]

Hold on, we aren't dissing the Oboe here are we?

It's probably my favorite woodwind instrument.

But then, I'm a big Bernhard Hermann fan!

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Hold on, we aren't dissing the Oboe here are we?

Not me. I was just quoting others.

 

[Ken1951]

Oboe is nice but English Horn is seriously cool.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

Oboe is nice but English Horn is seriously cool.

Hautbois is cool.

 

[Robin L]

Hautbois is cool.

This reminds me of the time the good folk at the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra passed out three page, double-sided copies of about 100 Eugene Ormandy jokes.

 

[MattHooper]

It's pretty crazy that vinyl is still on a 15 year rising streak and grew 94% in the 1st half of 2021!

As for "why old technologies" another reason, as outlined in many articles including the one below, is vinyl has become one way of bands to recoup some money, where it's almost impossible for most bands to make money streaming. Knowing this, plenty of younger people purchase vinyl (at shows etc) to help support their bands:

Kansas City bands are waiting months for vinyl records. It’s more than a ‘supply chain’ problem

It's hard to get a record made right now, unless you're Adele. But what, exactly, are the "supply chain issues" keeping vinyl out of indie bands' hands? The experience of Kansas City band Frogpond offers an illuminating look into this complex problem.

www.kcur.org

From the article:

"But Frogpond is not the only band experiencing delays right now — Bacon knows a lot of musicians just sitting on material, not scheduling shows because they don't know when they'll have vinyl, an important source of revenue for touring bands."

This is also one of the reasons I like buying vinyl from indie or smaller acts. My brother is just putting out an album that he worked on for something like 8 years. It's on some of the streaming services, but he's pressed vinyl (which I bought of course) to help make some money and also for him holding his work in a tangible form feels "right" and a form of completion. This is echoed over and over by bands young and old when I read articles on vinyl, e.g:


To Michelle Bacon and the rest of Frogpond, the end product is worth the wait.

"When you sit down and listen to a record, it's kind of a special moment to me, you know? It's not just like popping something in my CD player," Bacon says.

As Bacon describes it, playing a record is an event: carefully unveiling the vinyl from its jacket, placing it on the turntable, and hearing the lush, textured sound emerge from the speakers.

"To me, that's one of the most rewarding things," she says. "It's like the sheer amount of time and effort we've put in, kind of just comes out in this physical form. And with all of these supply chain issues, it's going to feel like even more of an accomplishment when we actually get it."

The fact that so many bands now release their music on vinyl, and also many see the vinyl release as the "ultimate expression" or way to experience their music, brings in an interesting new twist at this point for those who "want to hear music as the artist intended."
More and more, at least in popular music, it seems the vinyl release will be the way to do that ;-)

(Personally I don't really go down the rabbit hole of trying to hear music 'as the artist intended,' though that seems the implicit goal of those chasing accuracy).

 

[Jim Matthews]

No but you can find the telex number.

Pfft.... highfalutin technogabble.

Clacks are good enough for me.

GNU "Terry Pratchett"

 

[Galliardist]

(Personally I don't really go down the rabbit hole of trying to hear music 'as the artist intended,' though that seems the implicit goal of those chasing accuracy).

I've expressed that attitude in the past, although the real reason I try to stay close to "accurate" is that it gives the best chance of reasonable reproduction across a range of recordings with different deviations from accurate response.

But let's be honest - we impose that idea of "as the artist intended". A lot of the time, the artist - and the record company that is also making (often more) money from it - will just be happy if someone hears their music at all. Isn't that what all that loudness war business is about - being heard in more places, and in less than ideal circumstances?

That's why they make recordings, after all.

I guess this is really for another thread, though

 

[rdenney]

This reminds me of the time the good folk at the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra passed out three page, double-sided copies of about 100 Eugene Ormandy jokes.

Spell anything in French and it’s cool.

Rick “whose niece is a professional fagotto player” Denney

 

[Ron Texas]

https://thehustle.co/the-insane-resurgence-of-vinyl-records/

Not only are physical media sales evaporating, so are digital downloads. What's left is streaming. Despite all the attention to the vinyl revival, it's tiny when compared to the big picture.

 

[Galliardist]

Hautbois is cool.

Bombarde is really cool

 

[MattHooper]

https://thehustle.co/the-insane-resurgence-of-vinyl-records/

View attachment 170573
Not only are physical media sales evaporating, so are digital downloads. What's left is streaming. Despite all the attention to the vinyl revival, it's tiny when compared to the big picture.

Physical media sales "evaporating" seems a strange inference when that very article shows vinyl continuing it's 15 year ascent and still shooting straight up in projected sales faster than ever in 2021.

Of course streaming is the big piece of the pie. That's obvious and no reason to think it will change any time soon.

But the fact vinyl is such a small portion of overall music sales compared to streaming, yet many bands feel increasingly compelled to sell vinyl to help make a living, tells you just how crappy streaming has been in paying for artists.

 

[Ron Texas]

Physical media sales "evaporating" seems a strange inference when that very article shows vinyl continuing it's 15 year ascent and still shooting straight up in projected sales faster than ever in 2021.

Of course streaming is the big piece of the pie. That's obvious and no reason to think it will change any time soon.

But the fact vinyl is such a small portion of overall music sales compared to streaming, yet many bands feel increasingly compelled to sell vinyl to help make a living, tells you just how crappy streaming has been in paying for artists.

Vinyl has a very high margin for artists. Sales may be increasing by double digit percentages, but it's still tiny compared to what it used to be. You can increase a sliver by 20% and it's still a sliver.

Artists don't make much from streaming. Their main income source today is concerts.

 

[JJB70]

Sony and Philips engineers understood that CD would have a limited shelf life from the outset, it has lasted longer than most of them expected. The quantum leap was not really the carrier medium, it was the digitisation of audio. Once you make that step the carrier medium is pretty much unimportant as it is just a digital signal.

I still buy CDs but generally rip them to FLAC and store them. Part of this is probably just habit and being a bit conservative, but it's more than that. I like the fact that it gives my music a fixed point in terms of mastering, and also it means I am not reliant on a weblink (in happier times I travel a lot and sometimes go places where streaming isn't an option but I still like to be able to listen to music). And I still like the idea of not being beholden to fashionable ideas of the moment. This is less of an issue with music but the reason I still buy DVD and Blu-ray discs despite being a big enthusiast of streaming TV/movie services is that many of my favourite TV shows and movies are old classics which in some cases include content that falls foul of the political trends of the moment. I may not like such attitudes but history is what it is and I don't want some self-appointed guardians of morality editing stuff, over dubbing or even just cancelling stuff. At least with discs I can watch the content according to my own sensibilities, well as long as we still have disc players.

 

[trl]

Class A/B amps used to be, and I'd say that still are, the audio standard for measurements when comparing the Class-D amps to. This is like a question I found about 10 years ago on an auto forum: "Why do Otto engines still exist if Diesel engines are more performant regarding fuel consumption and torque?".

For me it is way easier to understand the schematic of an A/B Class amplifier than a Class-D, especially if reverse-engineering is needed, so easier to repair it in case of issues. Also, I've seen that most Class-D amps are still having troubles in keeping freq. response perfectly flat across 4...8 Ohms speakers, although best measuring amps from Amir's graph are of a newer design and seem to be able to keep up perfectly with different loads.

However, it's great that Class-D amps evolved during the past couple of years in such a way that this question appears on ASR forum; this will make it easier for new buyers in choosing the right amplifier based on price/performance ratio.

 

[Dogen]

I'm curious as to why there's less adoption of the Nutube technology to replace the regular tubes, at least in more budget oriented gear? They seem to solve a lot of issues in regular tubed products and are a lot easier to handle as a consumer.

Because people who want tubes want the issues that come with tubes. The heat, the size, the glass, the potential fragility, the expense... Solid state already solves the issues with tubes, and tube fans aren’t interested. I don’t think they’ll be satisfied knowing there’s tiny tubes somewhere...they want to see, feel and handle traditional vacuum tubes, for the most part.

 

[Frgirard]

Because people who want tubes want the issues that come with tubes. The heat, the size, the glass, the potential fragility, the expense... Solid state already solves the issues with tubes, and tube fans aren’t interested. I don’t think they’ll be satisfied knowing there’s tiny tubes somewhere...they want to see, feel and handle traditional vacuum tubes, for the most part.

Are you feeling well ?

 

[Aerith Gainsborough]

It should be, if that is indeed the case. That's pretty much ASR's raison d'être. Feel free to point me to examples that objectively and quantitatively demonstrate the superiority of the real thing to the sampled facsimile. In all seriousness, such data may exist; I dunno.

If you ever actually played the piano, you would not ask such questions.

While Pianoteq (modeled sound) does have a very realistic behavior, it's sound is still cannot compare.
Sampled pianos get closer in terms of sound but usually have behavioral inconsistencies the player needs to put up with.

It's not all bad though. I'd say that while the acoustic piano takes the cake when it comes to sheer presence of sound and the feeling of an instrument that is "alive" under your fingers, digital pianos/VST are more versatile, customizable and can even be ran through room correction like Dirac. Good luck tending to annoying modes from an acoustic in a suboptimal room.
Not to mention maintenance costs, annoying the neighbors with scale and arpeggio practice etc.

That being said: I am not sure how relevant the differences are when it comes to listening to recorded and mastered music.
Most people probably won't be able to tell the difference at all.

 

[EJ3]

If you ever actually played the piano, you would not ask such questions.

While Pianoteq (modeled sound) does have a very realistic behavior, it's sound is still cannot compare.
Sampled pianos get closer in terms of sound but usually have behavioral inconsistencies the player needs to put up with.

It's not all bad though. I'd say that while the acoustic piano takes the cake when it comes to sheer presence of sound and the feeling of an instrument that is "alive" under your fingers, digital pianos/VST are more versatile, customizable and can even be ran through room correction like Dirac. Good luck tending to annoying modes from an acoustic in a suboptimal room.
Not to mention maintenance costs, annoying the neighbors with scale and arpeggio practice etc.

That being said: I am not sure how relevant the differences are when it comes to listening to recorded and mastered music.
Most people probably won't be able to tell the difference at all.

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.