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

[mandrix]

Firstly honourable mention goes to the CD. While CD's did not provide "perfect sound forever" they came close. For those of us used to taking care of vinyl, caring for our CD's was no real problem. For others less careful, results would have varied.

CD recorders quickly appeared but were crippled by an industry hell bent on keeping control of the new digital media. As home computers became more common came the ability to make our own CD's unencumbered by any industry imposed constraints! We could also store music directly on our hard drives! My vote goes to computer based audio!

Yeah. I had a Sony 3 or 5 disc changer that also recorded or cloned discs. But give me a good pc optical drive any day.

 

[mikusguitarius]

And remember, CD (44.1kHz, 16 bit) is all that’s needed for human hearing. They got it right in the early 80s. Impressive!!

 

[MidiMagic]

My vote for the WORST "advancement": Copy protection.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

It has to be the audio CD... Although it's a shame dbx never managed to get a foothold with analogue vinyl.

 

[CPR]

DVD/Audio

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

DVD/Audio

It's such a shame DVD-Audio was so complicated. Why didn't it offer just audio - like SACD.

 

[mikusguitarius]

It's such a shame DVD-Audio was so complicated. Why didn't it offer just audio - like SACD.

I totally agree. I think we can agree that it simply wasn’t marketed/promoted properly…

 

[mandrix]

It's such a shame DVD-Audio was so complicated. Why didn't it offer just audio - like SACD.

I think the concept was good...lossless for the audio nuts like us and lossy + video for incompatible DVDA players.
The real shame was lack of affordable tools to author discs with. Plus the fact that discWelder has a weird way of screwing up static images.

 

[mandrix]

I like the blu ray disc format, so capable...but I don't have a clue how to author one (except an AVCHD) and here again good tools seem so pricey.
Seems like the hobbyist that doesn't want to code a bunch of stuff is left out again.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Agreed, it would have been great if we'd had some decent DVD-Audio muxing and authoring software's.

Many, many years ago I asked Jim Rogers aka: mpucoder, the developer of Muxman if he was interested in developing a very basic DVD-Audio muxing application (ie: without menus) but sadly there wasn't enough interest!

 

[mandrix]

Yeah. There is some free software available but I haven't used it. Looked like a pita on a glance a few years ago.
DVDA-Author I think it is.

 

[SeeMoreDigital]

Unfortunately even DVD-Author is way too complicated if all you want to do is create very basic DVD-A only muxes ie: without DVD-Video segments!

Anyway, it's all far too late to now as it's a dead format

 

[mandrix]

there have been a few DVDA' s released in fairly recent years. Djabe, Giancarlo Erra, Mr. Afternoon.
We still play the older ones, right?

 

[stoopid]

The DAW. People blame Spotify, or the record labels, or the fall of the CD, or whatever for the sad state of musical artists today. But, the DAW was the first step in making recording available to everyone for very little money. The result is thousands upon thousands of releases every week, as opposed to far fewer, that were controlled by the labels back in the 60's, 70's, and 80's. Soundtools (later to become Pro Tools) wasn't cheap in the beginning, and neither were the computers that ran that software. But it all became almost free in the end (people can, and do make and release albums on their phones now), and now we have a monumental glut of music....what happens with an unlimited and growing supply of any good or service? The price goes D O W N..... a related note: in 1970 there were an estimated 4,000 albums released. Today, Spotify is ingesting 100,000 songs....PER DAY

I was going to post something similar - low latency computer recording. For 15 years I've been able to make albums at home. That's revolutionary, but with caveats as you explained.

 

[stoopid]

And remember, CD (44.1kHz, 16 bit) is all that’s needed for human hearing. They got it right in the early 80s. Impressive!!

I was thinking this the other day when buying an album I owned 30 years ago, again, on compact disc. For all I know it's the same disc I sold the music store back then. lol

 

[Sal1950]

My vote for the WORST "advancement": Copy protection.

Ya can't blame some people for wanting to protect their IP
On the other hand, ya can't blame us for hacking it. LOL

 

[austinsignal]

Pursuant to previous posts regarding double blind evaluation of sample rates, audio gear, etc. This one is going to require the ‘double Tommy’ method of testing (blind, deaf, and dumb). Currently available on ebay.

 

[4-earredwonder]

I would certainly include DTS Entertainment which almost single handedly got the ball rolling by releasing 5.1 DTS encoded music which spanned, at the time, multiple major labels and IMO, was the forebearer for the SACD/DVD~A launch of the early 00's.

Up until then, 5.1 was only utilized for MOVIES!

DTS Entertainment​

	In 1997, DTS launched DTS Entertainment (DTSE), an independent recording label that licenses, produces, and markets an expansive series of DVD-Audio and 5.1 Music Discs. Working closely with producers and engineers, DTSE plays an integral role in the production and mixing process. There are currently more than 115 DTSE music titles available, covering a wide variety of genres.

 

[Petr Kropotkin]

My vote for the WORST "advancement": Copy protection.

Agreed, and my vote for second place goes to: Region Codes for DVDs and Blu-rays. Not an issue for me anymore, but it was a PITA early on, and having to paying extra for a player hack (thus defeating the purpose of the codes anyway).

 

[doriangrey63]

Minidisc digital recording the best advancement for me. Today in 2024 I have and record minidiscs. And the SACD is the other advancement in audio, better than the DVD Audio.