"Mikkel Breiler" wrote in message


On Sun, 11 Sep 2005 14:10:41 GMT, "Fleetie"
wrote:

Maybe in 100 years' time, CDs will seem even more
antiquated than old vinyl seems now. In that case, a CD
of a famous band, with its original packing, might be
worth a significant amount.

I thought we bought prerecorded media because we like the music.

CDs may indeed be seen as even more antiquated than Vinyl
in 100 years.

Compared to what?

Vinyl today is a continuation of an older working
principle which was vinyl taken to it's (so far) peak,
over older shellac 78 rpm recordings and phonograph rolls
before that.

Vinyl today is a dead technology.

CDs are compared to that only the first generation
digital media with DVD being the second.

That would be a false claim.

CDs are a third or fourth generation digital media.

Prior to CD there were several generations of digital audio that were only
used for production. This included the Sony, Soundstream, and 3M digital
recorders.

If we just consider distribution formats there there were LDs with digital
tracks.


Of the medias that has come about after CD and which may
be holding a clue to the audio quality of the future, the
Super Audio CD, DVD audio are the next step.


All well on their way to becoming dead formats. BTW, you missed HDCD, also a
dead format.

And while
many Super Audio CDs and DVD DTS issues are simply higher
quality samples of ordinary stereo albums those formats
actually do provide for more than just stereo which means
100 years from now people just might be reading a text
next to an exhibited DVD or SuperAudio CD that goes like
this:

"In the early days of digital medias the DVD and Super
Audio CD were the first attempts to bring more channels
and better fidelity to the consumer, although acceptance
was slow and eventually neither format would become the
defacto standard for such due to the material available
often never taking advantage of the format nor being
consumerfriendly".

This ignores the fact that DVDs had multichannel audio tracks long before
SACD and DVD-A.

Now what would researchers say about this period in 100
years?
No doubt lots of quad mixes that were prepared in the 70s
and never issued as the quad format on vinyl slowly
flopped dispite a lot of interest from retailers to push
4 channel gear.

One serious stopper was the fact that there was really no viable way to put
more than 2 channels on a LP.

The consumer had no interest at a time
when hardware was 40-60 percent overpriced and
manufacture wasn't lean or effective.


Not to mention the fact that all attempts to put more than 2 channels on a
LP were technical and often artistic failures.

Later on when DVD
came about production of most consumer gear was low
priced compared to 25 years before and most was made in
Asia and the profit margins were greatly reduced.

Virtually all of the ca.-70s multichannel equipment was made in Asia, as
well.