What if digital had never happened

Both have their place.... Seriously listening and really enjoying music it's analog. For convenience.... In my car, at the gym, at the beach or by the pool digital is fine.

Digital media generally gives me listener's fatigue. My ears are just sensitive that way!

 

If the early American settlers had to fight dinosaurs would they have won if Batman went back in time to help them?

 

It's funny, my first reaction was the same as many of yours-- but when I think back to where the two channel audio business was 20 years or more ago, they were dying-- home theatre was the only thing that saved them for a time- big installs, Meridian and other high end video stuff (analog too, I had that Pioneer LDs-2 Laser Disc player with a modified output for AC-3 before DVD was introduced, a line doubler, a big assed CRT projector, etc, all stuff that today, you could do for a fraction of the cost).
The movement away from listening as a serious thing, and more for background, portability (which I suppose you could trace back further to the Walkman) created a different group of more casual music listeners. I think this gave new impetus to the two channel audio business- one for mass market and one for the so-called "audio enthusiasts." (Don't mistake this as my personal bias in favor of purist audio- just a take on the "market").
In some ways, all these companies offering tube gear, turntables, and more esoteric speaker designs, really took off once the baseline became MP3 and the ability to "share" files via the Internet was made possible. There was now clearly a divide between lo-fi and hi-fi that I think actually helped the more conventional audio business out of the doldrums. (That it coincided with the vinyl revival is interesting, I'm not sure that the two are entirely related).

 

Didn't they actually make that movie? And it was really terrible? Cowboys v Aliens or something?

 

Wild horses couldn't drag me away . . . from my CDs!

 

Well done. Can't wait for the sequel. Or is it a prequel?
PS: i seriously thought you photoshopped that as a joke. I looked it up. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this was actually produced and released. Thanks for that, not sure it does much to restore my faith in the film biz, but....

 

You'd all be bitching about mini-cassettes sounding like crap, and the lack of album art.

And how mix-tapes killed the music industry, promoted piracy and destroyed the album as an art form.

 

Would the industry have made even better recordings? No. Three channel, Quad, 5.1, Atmos, SACD, HDCD, Etc. Every attempt at "better" has flopped. People only want convenient and cheap.

Economy of scale would make cheap products more awesome! No. Economy of scale makes cheap products cheaply (plastic decks and ceramic stylus...styli?). A Remington 870 is in no way comparable to a Holland & Holland double, even after making 50,000,000 of them.

Better Artists? No. The next big thing will always be more important to the companies than studio album #5. Teenagers don't want what the early 20's were listening to four years ago.

 

No digital? As much as I love listening to records, that would suck big time. Everyone who is a runner? You lose. At the gym. You lose too. Music in your car? Please don't make me listen to crappy cassette! Digital has been a YUUUGE advance in a bajillion ways, even acknowledging that there are still weirdos like me who like LPs.

 

I liked Anton's response in the comments section:

Submitted by Anton on September 12, 2017 - 11:59am
If digital had never happened...

1) This month's Stereophile would be featuring a review of the 84,000 dollar Nakamichi 1000 mark IX.

2) Cassettes would still rule the waves. (We would be wishing for something like digital to be invented.)

3) Sony would have moved on from Elcaset to Emcaset, Encaset, etc. We might be up to 'Ewcaset' by now.

4) The Betamax/VHS war would still be going on. (Or, Sony would have invented other failed tape mediums by now.)

5) Records would still be pressed on 80 gram vinyl.

6) Thousands of basement dwelling Everquest addicts would instead be working in record and comic shops treating us in condescending fashion.

7) BSR would still be selling two thirds of the world's turntables.

8) We wouldn't be online having this discussion!

9) For hip vintage music source fads, we'd have to be talking 8-tracks or 78's instead of LP. Hipsters would be buying 200 gram shellacs and talking about the dynamics of Rudy Vallee box set releases.

10) Maxell, Kodak, TDK, 3M, Wollensack, Akai, Nakamichi, BASF, Revox, Dokoder, and Tandberg would still be jammin'!!!

11) There would be no Pro-Ject, Döhmann, Lyra, etc. The market would not be niche enough.

12) I would be stuck listening about how Jesus saves instead of listening to music on Sirius on trips through rural areas.

13) We would still all be trying to be caller number three to win concert tickets!

14) We'd still be able to buy record changers.

15) We'd have great arguments about storing tapes in 'played' or 'rewound' status.

16) We'd actually have something that does improve with demagnetization.

17) Kal would be writing about Music in the Round and telling us CD-4 still beats SQ or QS.

18) No digital - no computer aided design....that might be better!

 

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I own tons of both, and have never experienced "Listener Fatigue"...What does your doctor think?

 

We would all be complaining about all the issues of analog, and why "they" can not come up with something better, as we did in the 70's...

 

I've never experienced this either.

Total mystery to me.

 

Me neither. Sounds horrible, though. Hope they find a cure for it one day. No one should have to suffer.

 

I would donate to that charity without hesitation.

 

I'll donate my best wishes. It feels charitable enough just acknowledging their suffering.

 

From the article:
"How much better might LPs sound today had analog technologies of recording, mixing, and mastering continued to advance?"
Methinks probably not amazingly better, frankly. LPs/analog already had decades of advancement and in some ways (crappy vinyl pressings, mistracking Dolby) was deteriorating. The whole ecosystem simply had limitations due to physics. And "how much better" for WHO? For the mass market? That is often about decent products getting somewhat cheaper (think receivers, speakers) and ultimate advancement for far fewer people.

"Had digital been a nonstarter, the 300,000,000 folks (!) who bought Apple iPods might instead have bought 300,000,000 turntables and cartridges."
Um, NO. Different animal entirely. Would have used existing car cassette decks and Walkmen instead, not strapping some vinyl utopia on their backs whilst jogging.

 

The guy from the Police Academy movies writes Audiophile articles!

 

Next "As We See It" article from Guttenberg will be "What if I had never been a movie star?".

 

What would've happened if I made it big and not Ted Dansen or Tom Selleck?

 

What about LPs recorded digitally, does that cause your ears a problem too?

 

I'll say it again and again, nothing good has ever happened since we had to use this newfangled copper technology. We could instead continue to perfect and use stone axes and would never had to leave our caves. progress shmogress.

 

There is still a limit on the frequencies reproduced. The argument is that the frequencies that are beyond human hearing are being reproduced in a purely digital recording, causing the listener to become fatigued.

 

Yeah. I'm not quite so convinced of that, mostly because I don't think it stacks up in practice for all of the time.