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Who's Hearing What? Big Changes Coming

All worry about new formats is missing the bigger changes coming. Buried in little news reports is the rumbling of bigger changes afoot. I want to know who else is hearing these rumblings, come on out and talk. Chip companies are pumping out high-performance, cheap solutions that will change everything. Perpetual Technology's P3, P1A stuff isn't complete new, there's high-end pro electronics doing room correction for halls, churchs, concert arenas. Those capabilities are going to end up in every system. All these high performance digital chips that do upsampling are cheap. Look at the Tripath digital amp that is in the eVo amps, and imagine what happens when there are affordable powered speakers with those little amp boards inside. Over the next 3-4 years we are going to see a huge wave of all digital systems with great sound (notice the new Krell system?). We'll be seeing digital all the way to the speaker, no jitter if you don't have a CDROM, no need for expensive tone control cables. Multichannel systems are coming, not just because of the new formats but because the big players know they can sell us entirely new sound systems that will out do a lot of what's out there today. Will there still be a high-end, I hope so, but just as in the past, today's high-end will become tomorrow's mid-fi.

I love my tube pre-amp, but I'm also keeping my eyes opened. Buckle up for a wild ride.
kevint

Showing 1 response by sugarbrie

sugarbrie
3,854 posts
 
We have been hearing about the demise of tubes since the transistor arrived. The same with CDs versus LPs. The synthesizer replacing live musicians. Now computer animation replacing live actors. Digital cameras replacing film. I am still waiting for all these things to be clearly better. Still not there yet in any area. "No need for expensive cables"?? Well, if the cheap cables used are slow, then the timing of the digital signal will be off and there goes the good sound.


Even PCs making mainframes computers obsolete. The internet would not work if it was built on a PC platform. Mainframes still rule for serious applications. I am still waiting.

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