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
My salesman told me that a single firewire will replace about 70% of all the cables that wire your home theater system. Than on your tv or monitor screen you will have a "Windows like desktop" with icons that you select. If you want your dvd player on,simply click on the dvd icon. If you want your cd player on,simply click on its icon. An HDTV signal will also contain the internet shooting right into your living room!
Feeling diplomatic today, I'll agree with both Kevint and Sugarbrie. Digital technology is going to continue to proliferate, but I also think there will also always be a "high end" out there whose objective it is to improve on whatever the "mainstream" uses. For example, there are CD players and then there are excellent CD players. Cheers. Craig
Sugarbrie, no new technology pushes the old tech away over night, or even in a few years. The CD hasn't replaced the LP, just marginalized it. In its day the LP was like the 2 or 3rd evolution of the plastic platter that replaced wax cylinders, kind of the DVD of its time. And you're right about mainframes still being around, too. However, more than 50 percent of the servers powering the Internet are based on PC architecture. Nothing's black and white, or happens over night, but Big Changes are coming (and yes, I love the music from my tube pre-amp run through my eVo digital amp). kt
Holy cow Sugarbrie, another person who thinks like I do. I just quoted a job to Texas Instruments, and guess what? They do not want digital, 4X5 original transparencies so they can make digital files that are needed and still maintain a perfect long lasting original.

By the way, while we are shooting this project I plan to let my audio systems tubes fill the room with music.
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.

Doesn't the Meridian theater system operate fully in the digital domain, the way you are describing? Or is this new stuff even a step further than that?
yes, i am aware of one of audio's real guru's who's been working on an all-digital multi-channel system (source to speakers) for some time. i'd bet we see some prototypes at ces 2002. -kelly