"David Looser" wrote in
message

Are you really suggesting that digital audio was *not*
the result of some serious R&D?

In the sense that digital audio technology was ported into the audio
industry from other industries.

Also, not all audio is hi fi. There are other flavors of audio including
communications and sound reinforcement.

The genesis of many innovations in hi fi would depend on how you define hi
fi. If you define hi fi as high end audio, then you have to realize that the
first thing that high end audio did with digital is reject it, and class it
as something that was more of interest to people who wanted mid fi.