It’s the time of year for saving money!
Wired’s pictorial from the California Audio Show was very
pretty, and their dialog was witty, but the comments at the bottom of the page
turned surly pretty darned early.
A “professional recording engineer” chimed in right at the
get-go on how most studios use $99 Shure mics and Yamaha NS-10 monitors and
most music is recorded like crap so why bother trying to make a 16-bit/44.1 Red
book standard recording sound good? Why indeed?
Unfortunately 16-bit/44.1 Red book standard music files are going
to be with us a long time. Well after the time when CD’s are mentioned in the
same sentence with Laser Discs and Beta video cassettes we’ll still be
listening to 16-bit/44.1 files, so we might as well try to make them sound as
good as possible rather than merely accept their inherent mediocrity.
I won’t deny that some “ultra-fi” designs are over the top with
equally stratospheric price tags. Do they deserve to rival fine automobiles or
investment-grade art? Obviously, not a lot of any of the components in the
survey will be made or sold. At this level of audio each component is a limited
production art object.
But that’s the point. Customers aren’t merely purchasers of
goods and services, but patrons of the art of audio – partners who are
absolutely necessary so the search for audio perfection can continue to
progress. God bless anyone with the means and passion to purchase a D’Agostino
Momentum power amplifier or any of the other gear shown in the Wired pictorial…you
help make the audio world go around.
