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Audio: what took so long ?

It seems everyone is reporting very positive-changes to playback -fuses, power cords, speakers. The question is, what took so long ?
My reasons:
-The Big Boys did enough (Bell Labs. etc). Radio, cinema-sound, electrical recording-methods. The Depression -1930, no more serious research.

-Shrinking market, less R&D. People started listening to headphones (late 1960s), car audio (w/ its improvements 1980s+90s), then MP3.

-Perfectionist speaker co. had other markets (1970s). Horn/waveguides dominated audio in the 50 &60s, but the market was peaking-off. So an opportunity to expand into studio-monitors, live-sound & the home-market w/ cones. Only exports (to Japan) kept the horn alive. This, while panel speakers invaded high-end, wreaking-havoc on amplifiers and ultimately going backwards on sound.

-EE engineers go into computers, microwave & networking. Audio just wasn’t fun anymore.

-Cheap parts -it took too long to understand, never mind produce, the contacts we have on connectors & fuses. Transistors, regulators, transformers also saw a leap. More study into materials and metals.

-With no serious study, how could we have (proper) speaker placement ? Or speaker stands ?

I’m proud of what’s (finally) being done. But if wasn’t for the Japanese, Danish (and maybe Germans) serious audio would have gone the way of the player-piano or drive-in restaurant.
jonnie22

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gerryah930
144 posts
 
Hey, I have been involved in the design of direct machine to human brain interface technologies. They have been used to pilot aircraft, in advanced solider robotics, to quell neurological and psychiatric disorders (such as Parkinsonism and in obsessive compulsive disorder, major depressive disorder), and in a variety of other applications over the past 30 years. I do not know of any studies using direct stimulation of the human auditory system with the exception of advanced cochlear implants in those patients with inherited hearing loss.

See: O’Rawe, J. A., H. Fang, S. Rynearson, R. Robison, E.S. Kiruluta, G.A. Higgins, K. Eilbeck, M.G. Reese, and G.J. Lyon. Integrating precision medicine in the study and clinical treatment of a severely mentally ill person.  PeerJ 1 (2013): e177.
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