"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"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.

All the electronics and communications technologies have fed off each other
from the invention of the electric telegraph onwards, so what?

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.


"High end audio" isn't "Hi-Fi". Hi-Fi is about good quality sound whilst
"High end Audio" is about status symbols and money, it's also deliberately
retro.


David.

" wrote:

In my career in the audio industry most of the greatest recent
advances have indeed come from the lunatic fringe.

NONE have ever come from them. It's all been retrograde such as the new
tube/valve religion.


There hasn't been
any serious R&D in this field for over two generations.

Where the **** have you been ? In the real world ? It seems not !

Graham

" wrote:

Most people don't realize that sound reproduction was the equivalent
of the "space race" during the 1920's and 30's.

Complete and utter ******** ! Back then it was merely 'industrial
engineering' and circuits were made only as good as needed to be to get
paid for them. They were pretty crap too.

It was only really in the 60s and on that audio started to get special
treatment for fidelity. It's still going on right now.

Graham

David Looser wrote:

wrote

In my career in the audio industry most of the greatest recent
advances have indeed come from the lunatic fringe. There hasn't been
any serious R&D in this field for over two generations.

Most people don't realize that sound reproduction was the equivalent
of the "space race" during the 1920's and 30's. Most every topology,
circuit, and interconnection methodology can be directly traced back
to the work of Bell Labs and their competitors, much of it for
military applications.

I strongly disagree with the above.

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

As for "Most every topology, circuit, and interconnection methodology can be
directly traced back to the work of Bell Labs and their competitors" I guess
it depends on what you mean by their competitors. If you mean that "Most
every topology, circuit, and interconnection methodology can be directly
traced back to the work of somebody or other who worked in the fields of
audio electronics" then yes, it's true, but totally obvious and therefore
not worth saying.

'Bell Labs' etc working invariably involved matched 600 ohm etc circuits
together with all the limitations thereof.

Liberating audio from that horrible restriction was one of the best things that
ever happened for high quality audio.

Graham

Arny Krueger wrote:

wrote

In my career in the audio industry most of the greatest
recent advances have indeed come from the lunatic fringe.

No, they were ported in from other industries.

There hasn't been any serious R&D in this field for over
two generations.

Agreed.

Uh ?

How about all those nice new ADCs and DACs with near 24 bit performance ?

Graham

Arny Krueger wrote:

"David Looser" wrote

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 very high standards in SR today ought to make 'hi-fi' blush from
embarrassment.

Graham

David Looser wrote:

"Arny Krueger" wrote
wrote

Most people don't realize that sound reproduction was the
equivalent of the "space race" during the 1920's and
30's. Most every topology, circuit, and interconnection
methodology can be directly traced back to the work of
Bell Labs and their competitors, much of it for military
applications.

True for analog and tubes, but not true for SS and digital.

Not even true for "analog and tubes".

Absolutely definitely not true for sure.

Even NFB hadn't been 'invented' back then IIRC, so circuits ran open-loop
with truly horrible levels of distortion.

Graham

David Looser wrote:

"High end audio" isn't "Hi-Fi". Hi-Fi is about good quality sound whilst
"High end Audio" is about status symbols and money, it's also deliberately
retro.

It's a shame that 'high-end' has become such a laughing stock. A victim of the
absurdly and ridiculously opinionated ideas of its promoters. Less is more and
the like.

Graham

I hadn't read this before - I know the writer very well, though I
haven't seen him recently or discussed hi-fi for a while with him.
Andy

Andy Evans wrote:

I hadn't read this before - I know the writer very well, though I
haven't seen him recently or discussed hi-fi for a while with him.

He seems to have lost the plot.

In the 20s 'high fidelity' (not that such a concept even existed back
then) involved dragging a steel needle at very high tracking force round
a groove in a disc made of shellac !

And he thinks that's the pinnacle of audio R&D ?

Graham