2. music
  3. 131376-20253

2017 vs. 1990s - How far we have come

Hi Everyone,

I'm just taking a moment to think about how far we have come in the quality and enjoyment of music over the last 3 decades or so. I'm listening to Jazz.fm at 96kHz/16 via a Squeezebox Touch an NAD D 3020, and custom speakers (free design is available here ) on my desk as I work.

I have to say, the sound is pretty fantastic. We do a lot of comparisons to evaluate the relative merits of any given system, but we choose what we compare to. If we compare what we can get now vs. in the late 1980's/1990's I have to say things are really really good, and we should all take time to think about that now and then.

My total outlay is around $800 in electronics + the speakers.

First, I can pick among almost any radio station in the world. When guests from China show up, I have a station from Beijing playing when they arrive. I have 3 or 4 really good jazz stations on tap. There's Spotify and Tidal (great old school catalog) in addition to my 800 albums or so, some hi rez, mostly Redbook.

Digital amplifiers and DAC's are sooooooo much better than they used to be. Some of the DAC improvements in the low/mid market is outstanding. Especially Redbook. Digital amps, even cheap one's, sound so much better than the initial trials around the 1980s I heard. I mean sooooooo much better.

Don't get me wrong, there's a warm spot in my heart for vinyl and tube amps. But let's not pooh pooh an all digital/Class D solution either. The convenience, price and features are really outstanding now.

There will always be room for a discerning ear however. I don't mean to say all DAC's and all Class D amps and all speakers are now great. They are not. I am saying that for the music lover and audiophile your entry level to really good sound is a lot less expensive than before. Let's celebrate this, and also celebrate that this allows us to share not just shopping experiences but culture as well. The better music transmission is, the easier it is to enjoy and share all sorts of music, and culture. We should delight in that.

Best,

E
erik_squires
boxer12
8,656 posts
 
I agree with you on the DAC's. Spent $250 on a Parasound ZDAC and it sounds a whole lot better than I ever expected. Pretty amazing given the cost. 
erik_squires OP
16,593 posts
 
Boxer: The ZDAC's are extremely under-rated. I would never be unhappy with one.


onhwy61's avatar
onhwy61
5,289 posts
 
The equipment really hasn't changed that much, but there's been a revolution in media.  Hard disk servers and streamers with subscription services didn't exist back then.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
IMO and IME, the equipment is brick walled and going in circles, with many a misstep along the way.

Subtle changes upward, yes, but overall, it’s always been there, fully available in the parts quality costs. Modern times... has wreaked havoc in the mid level quality available for a given set amount. Big economics story there, so complex that just about any viewpoint can be fleshed out into seemingly making sense.

We’ve been forced into being smarter. And quality has suffered, in some ways. It would be a long story to define it.

without really getting into the story behind it...you can take a mediocre device from the 60’s to 90’s and intelligently upgrade it... to being the equal of anything expensive and top-flite in today’s market.

Fundamental changes are not happening as fast as some might try to hawk into the extant moments.

It’s a mature market, for the most part, which means established methods and ways. True disruptions are going to be few and far between due to this maturity and the inability of an adjusted and staid sytem to recognize such. A staid and controlled system will most times reject anything truly new. Whether any bits of new appear or are recognized is up to the given person(s) and group. Groups are notoriously conservative... so new in most cases, for a group... is likely just a minor difference wrapped in a flag that appears new.

My problem with digital, is that it has spent 30 years simply trying to equal a LP. just trying to equal an LP.

Which is unbelievably pathetic.

I’m not against digital but that does not qualify as innovation that takes the desires of the market pinnacles further, that’s an innovation of a different type; one that is about the users and holders of said signal storage and playback, not about true innovation in qualities. Radically different unrealized mediocrity for everyone!

By 1993 or so, after much testing, I rejected digital as a botched job that had nothing to do with high end audio, but was obviously grasped by high end audio in the desire for sales and multiple versions of flags were wrapped around it and promoted as hard as can be. It was nothing more than a bottle of 2 year old scotch that was nice but it needed to mature into a 30 year old scotch and that was a long way away.

meanwhile, I was not going tho throw out my widely available 30 year old scotch to promote and drink immature bad tasting and nearly toxic - 2 year old scotch. I was at a pinnacle and still moving forward, why go backward? What the hell was everyone’s major malfunction? Oh yeah, markets are based on the new, not the used or traded. Just the new. So the 2 year old immature and bad tasting scotch was promoted to the average man in the street.

This is a sort of comparative story of where everyone was with analog in the early 90’s. This is not the only thing that was going on through those time periods but it was definitely a part of it.
teo_audio
2,197 posts
 
I think of class d in the same way, it’s in the dancing bear stage like CD was in the early 90’s.

It’s amazing we can figure out that the motions of the bear are likened to dancing of a sort.

but ...the bear dances very very badly. Fidelity? Peak fidelity, perfected dancing? No.

Since this is analogies here, maybe digital and Class D can be likened to really good AI. Like AI and CGI, it hits the uncanny valley a bit too much for some.
More to discover