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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

Showing 1 response by sbank

sbank's avatar
sbank
3,382 posts
 
I would like to order the distortion-erasing chip for my brain please.
The OP's premise strikes me as pretty far off. This statement made me cringe,"while panel speakers invaded high-end, wreaking-havoc on amplifiers and ultimately going backwards on sound."

Unfortunately, much research is focused on commercial returns, but plenty has trickled into audio from unexpected places, from Napster, Texas Instruments & onward. Silicon valley advances during the dark 80s, 90s etc. laid the foundation for many of the recent commercial advancements that so many are now touting. 

Hopefully someone is doing some research now to find a better way to measure what sounds more like real music so profiteers will find a way to build and mainstream "the absolute sound". Cheers,
Spencer
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