If you could only pick one major advancement in Audio since the mid 80s what would it be?

[JohnN]

HDMI.

Damn, wish I posted this. Right on!

 

[atrocity]

HDMI.

When it works.

 

[atrocity]

Every reel to reel tape I owned disintegrated. Either the oxide fell off or the rubber backing stuck to the oxide. I had better luck with TDK cassettes. Others failed in various ways.

My luck with home-recorded cassettes (TDK, Maxell and even J.C. Penney!) has been great. Pre-recordeds, not so much.

Reels have largely just held up for me. I have no idea why, it's not as if they've been carefully stored in a climate-controlled vault.

The tape I just digitized was 1200 feet of his particular Audiotape variant: https://i.etsystatic.com/22095517/r/il/4773ce/5352275997/il_fullxfull.5352275997_ahsq.jpg

 

[atrocity]

Now that's in my neck of the woods. Tallahassee that is.

It was a jazz show apparently hosted by someone named Jerry Good, though he never says his name on the air. It's written on the box and reel, though. Side two is an audio letter to a friend where he says words that would get him banned from radio and talks about meeting Sammy Kaye!

I can make it available for downloading if anyone is curious. Mono FLAC--FM radio still wasn't in stereo at the time.

 

[LuvMyQuad]

Yep, but the forever age old problem remains.
The young-lings THINK they know everything and refuse to learn from us befuddled geezers.

I originally voted CD, and for home reproduction still believe that.
But going back a bit further I have to add it was Digital Recording.
Just about every recording engineer that was around back then has made the same comment.
They were amazed, it was the first time they couldn't tell the difference between the pure straight microphone feed and the recording playback.
That says something.

I believe the vast majority of the replies would fall into the category of "the marriage of computer and audio technology". It all starts with digital recording and the birth of the CD. Formats come and go, but all of them are digital mediums requiring computer technology for recording, storage and playback. And the same can be said for the video side of things.

I can remember reading articles in Stereo Review and Popular Mechanics about how it was going to happen and postulating about the unification of computers, audio and video.

For most of us, our grandfathers would have picked different milestones. Like the invention of the phonograph, or movies with sound, or the dawn of stereo. When I first got involved with this hobby, vinyl was the dominant format, just after the stereo revolution. No hi fi cassettes yet even. It boggles the mind how far it's progressed in the last 100 years, of which I got to see 50 or so. I can't even begin to imagine what the next 100 years will offer.

 

[4-earredwonder]

My latest epiphany, after 14 million dollars worth of 9 theaters since 2009. What I wrote to the General Manager of Elipson, about the Planet L:

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16 Planet L Atmos music is perhaps by a long run the finest 3D audio I have ever heard. The script of Atmos music comes out so coherently (and I am talking Marantz AV10 with Amp 10 and 8 pairs of 1k euro Planet L's) that under $25,000, it has surpassed those 12 million dollar award-winning systems. In short, don't waste your money. The room is square and it is not treated, but positioning the speakers like I do, decoupled from the walls, helps a lot. The sphere shape speaker measured the best out of all shapes in a 1952 American study. Apparently, they still do.

So the next great thing to happen to our hobby is like balls to the walls literally but not economically—they're a bargain. If Elipson makes me my own version, rest assured that I will advertise these as an indispensable Atmos complement, to the best of my abilities and advertise on this forum.

For sure, a dizzying array of equipment/speakers! How do they handle bass response? Extremely intriguing. Is the Marantz Amp 10 Class A/B?

 

[godathunder]

Youtube

As a precursor to streaming. For the first time you werent reliant on knowing someone who had a copy of a piece of music you wanted to listen to or happening to hear it on the radio. You could indulge your curiosity and access a previously distanced world.

Did it open my ears to all sorts of music Id otherwise never have encountered? Yes
Did it allow me to audition music before I forked out my hard earned? Yes
Would I want to listen critically to music that way? No

 

[CINERAMAX]

For sure, a dizzying array of equipment/speakers! How do they handle bass response? Extremely intriguing. Is the Marantz Amp 10 Class A/B?

The speakers go down to the high 40s, icepower like trinnov's. We also have 4 Perlisten 15" getting connected and we need to tame the RT FROM LIKE 700 TO 325. Planning on placing latticewood.

 

[mandrix]

It was a jazz show apparently hosted by someone named Jerry Good, though he never says his name on the air. It's written on the box and reel, though. Side two is an audio letter to a friend where he says words that would get him banned from radio and talks about meeting Sammy Kaye!

I can make it available for downloading if anyone is curious. Mono FLAC--FM radio still wasn't in stereo at the time.

I used to record an FM broadcast from a Tally station Sunday mornings back in the '80's in which David Sanborn hosted a jazz show. His show helped me develop a taste for jazz. (could have been '90's....)

 

[MidiMagic]

1987: Pro-Logic - standardized decoding of Dolby Surround encoded content.

Even with the poor mono compatibility of Dolby Surround and the 7kHz limit in the surround channel. I think it was a missed opportunity to not produce more albums (all genres) that were Dolby Surround encoded, with Pro-Logic decoding, sound placements would be predictable, more like discrete surround sound.


Kirk Bayne

AGREE! A SINGLE standard.

Then Dolby had to change everything because his patent expired.

 

[mandrix]

AGREE! A SINGLE standard.

Then Dolby had to change everything because his patent expired.

Are you referring to the company or an individual?

 

[mandrix]

My luck with home-recorded cassettes (TDK, Maxell and even J.C. Penney!) has been great. Pre-recordeds, not so much.

Reels have largely just held up for me. I have no idea why, it's not as if they've been carefully stored in a climate-controlled vault.

The tape I just digitized was 1200 feet of his particular Audiotape variant: https://i.etsystatic.com/22095517/r/il/4773ce/5352275997/il_fullxfull.5352275997_ahsq.jpg

I came back to this post, because I always used to rip LP's to TDK cassette tapes. Back in the day I preferred the SA (Super Avilyn) tape. I had the tapes survive many years from the early 70's until I gave them away to a young music listener in the early 2000's.
We had a joint yard sale in town with others, and I was asking 50 cents per tape. This young man walked up, no money, we talked a bit and my wife said "take them all", which I agreed with.
I had a Thorenz TT, a Kenwood deck, and access to a Cali friend's 100's of LP's for the source of many, though I had an impressive collection once.

 

[atomicSabatine]

Digital audio workstation. Dealing with tape is such a pain.

 

[Stupy]

Yep, but the forever age old problem remains.
The young-lings THINK they know everything and refuse to learn from us befuddled geezers...

We would be nowhere without them! Long live the befuddled geezers!

[For some reason this makes me think of soundbars... *sigh*... so many of my contemporaries...]

 

[barfle]

Youtube

As a precursor to streaming. For the first time you werent reliant on knowing someone who had a copy of a piece of music you wanted to listen to or happening to hear it on the radio. You could indulge your curiosity and access a previously distanced world.

Did it open my ears to all sorts of music Id otherwise never have encountered? Yes
Did it allow me to audition music before I forked out my hard earned? Yes
Would I want to listen critically to music that way? No

I know a lot of the music I bought was something I first heard on the radio. Of course, as a teen in the 60s, it was top 40 (digging up some of those old charts, I was surprised at the obscure somgs I remember and the hits I forgot). Albums always included songs I hadn’t heard, some were amazingly good and some inspired me to get up and move the tone arm ahead a band.

While there’s very little that appeals to me on top 40 radio today, I occasionally cruise the adult contemporary, jazz, or classical stations and discover gems that make my music collection even better than it already was.

These days, I get a lot of recommendations off this forum. I find that my taste in music doesn’t quite line up with everybody else’s, so I’ll check out the music on YT to see what all the fuss is about. Turns out that Booka Shade isn’t a rapper after all.

 

[par4ken]

AGREE! A SINGLE standard.

Then Dolby had to change everything because his patent expired.

The problem with a single standard is that it is that the chosen one is usually the wrong one!

 

[MidiMagic]

Are you referring to the company or an individual?

Yes

 

[stevendive]

The title is the question. The mid 80s is meant to mean the use of digital formats. There are no wrong answers.

My pick is the ability to store music on a server and play it back on demand with full quality.

There have been many responses here about things like digital, transmission methods, etc, but not much addressing improvements of naturalness for (eg) music, so my suggestion is ambisonics, which was being supported by several electronics makers in the 80s. I am thinking particularly of B-Format of at least 1st order rather than 2 channel UHJ, of which most are aware.

Ambisonics in general use has fallen by the wayside for home use for a couple of reasons, but it is in extensive use in VR at 3 rd and higher order as it can be encoded for binaural and decoded with head tracking and HRTF to give amazingly good imaging and sense of depth. Its use in music reproduction is extremely good, even at 1 st order, in room. There are a handful of ambisonic 1 st order B-Format releases on Bandcamp, too.

A limit is that speaker rigs for beyond 1 st order increase in size, so beyond 3 rd order (min. 8 horizontal spkrs) becomes impractical in most homes. The limitations of 2 ch UHJ has done it no favours, so it’s a huge pity 3 & 4 (true 3D) channel UHJ never got to market, partly due to the cost of transmission channels in the 80s and the complexity and expense of ‘would be’ analogue decoders, none of which came to market. A lost opportunity, now we’re well into the digital age. Nonetheless, full 1 st order gives fully linear surround with stable imaging and no phasiness, for which hardware & software decoders are available currently.

An ignored technology for home use that just wants someone to pick it up and go with it again, I believe.

 

[proufo]

Digital ambiance creation (Lexicon) with side speakers.

 

[mandrix]

Well I almost cast a vote for a company that makes I.C. chips.
I have to assume (maybe wrongly) that T.S.M.C. limited makes the bulk of chips going in audio gear in that part of the world?