It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Depending on whose reckoning you
accept, hi-fi is anywhere from 50 to 60-odd years old. The redoubtable Avery Fisher used
to claim that he invented it in 1937, and his case is as good as anyone's, although his
work was based on developments that stretched back to Alexander Graham Bell. Whatever the
starting date, the aim of audio ingenuity over the years has been constant: the perfect
reproduction of sound. Manufacturers have often rashly claimed that they have finally
reached that goal, only to be upstaged by some new development that advanced the art a
step further.
While it may seem, in retrospect, that audio technology has
traveled a fairly straight path from the primitive early days to today's sophisticated
digitally based systems, there were in fact a lot of wrong turns and dead ends along the
way. Anyone who has been serious about audio for any length of time probably has a few
relics of such abortive developments hiding in the attic, if they're not still included in
the family system.
Most of these died ignominious deaths in the marketplace,
although a few did lead to mainstream technical advances, and so are still around in one
form or another. For me, all of them evoke feelings of nostalgia. Some samples:
Dynagroove
The conventional phonograph record was tinkered with
probably more than anything else in audio. This is understandable, as the humble disc
basically used the same technology developed by Thomas Edison in 1877. In the mid-1960s,
RCA attempted to upgrade the LP disc in a way that would make it sound better on modest
record players. Their process was called Dynagroove, and it consisted of a form of
equalization that varied with the distance from the center of the disc, to compensate for
the problems inherent in the inner grooves. It was an interesting attempt, but had the
unfortunate side effect of making the records sound dreadful on high-quality systems,
without substantially improving performance on lesser players. RCA dropped the technique
quickly, although the name continued to be applied to the company's discs for a time
afterwards.
Skinny LPs
Another RCA innovation appeared in the wake of the 1970s
oil crunch, when polyvinyl chloride was increasingly expensive and hard to obtain. The
company discovered it could reduce the amount of vinyl in a disc by almost half without
affecting its ability to contain full-depth grooves. In doing so, it claimed that the more
flexible records would be less likely to hold warps than the older, fatter discs.
Whatever economies RCA may have realized with such records,
the audiophile community roundly condemned them. For one thing, they proved to be more
susceptible to warps than other discs; for another, their flimsiness caused them both to
conform to irregularities on turntable surfaces and to droop when used on the record
changers popular at the time. Their lightness also made them tend to pick up airborne
sounds, like the diaphragm of a microphone.
The worst feature of these records, however, was caused by
the necessity to make them conform to physical standards set by the Recording Industries
Association of America (RIAA), which specified that all discs be a certain thickness at
the edge and in the label area. To meet these specs and still save vinyl in the playing
area, the record makers had to build in a sort of inward slope that took up most of the
first piece of music. Many tonearms, particularly those with light tracking forces, simply
skied down this slope to the level part of the disc, with a horrifying noise and potential
damage to both stylus and record.
Audiophile recordings
One of the ironies of hi-fi is that these even existed --
weren't all LPs supposed to be audiophile quality? Well perhaps, but it was
generally accepted that the demands of mass production and the fashion for elaborate
multi-track recording techniques resulted in discs that rarely lived up to the medium's
potential.
Several specialty companies, mainly small ones, set out to
correct this by producing no-compromise records for a discriminating market that didn't
mind paying a premium to obtain first-class source material. The granddaddy of these
companies was Sheffield Records, under Doug Sax and Lincoln Mayorga, which introduced (or,
rather, re-introduced) the Direct-to-Disc recording, to avoid the sorts of noise
and distortion normally caused by mastering on tape. Other outfits experimented with
digital recording, half-speed mastering, improved vinyl, 45-rpm albums, coincident
microphone placement, and a host of other techniques to improve the sound of records.
Eventually, even the major record companies joined in -- a tacit admission that they had
been cutting corners with their normal product. Ultimately, the trend had its desired
effect: Once consumers realized what discs could sound like, they came to expect it, and
record companies began to upgrade their recordings, primarily by moving more and more into
digital mastering.
Extended-Play records
The standard LP record was so much a part of the hi-fi
scene for so long that we tend to forget that it was only one contender in what was
undoubtedly the bitterest audio war ever fought. In the late 1940s, it was obvious that
the 78-rpm disc was woefully inadequate -- it was noisy, it broke easily, and it offered
only a very short playing time per side. The two largest American record companies --
Columbia and RCA -- tackled the problem and, as might be expected, came up with different
solutions.
Columbia developed a disc made of quiet, relatively
unbreakable vinyl, 10 or 12 inches in diameter -- the same sizes as standard 78s. In
addition to the new material, two factors made the Columbia disc special: it used a much
finer groove than the 78, allowing more material to be packed into a given amount of
surface area (variable pitch, which let the engineers cram even more sound onto the disc,
came later), and it revolved at 33-1/3 rpm, which further increased the amount of recorded
material the disc could hold (the speed was chosen because it was already the standard for
broadcast transcriptions, promising radio stations a relatively easy adaptation to the new
format). The combination of smaller groove and slower speed meant that the earliest
versions could get about 20 minutes on one side of a 12" disc, which Columbia
therefore dubbed the Long-Playing, or LP, record.
RCA also opted for vinyl and the "microgroove,"
but chose not to tamper with the basic unit of the record business -- the
"single." Consumers were accustomed to buying music one song at a time (two,
actually, if you count the flip side), and there was no particular reason to believe that
they would change their habits overnight just because the technology to put more music on
a disc existed. The RCA answer was the seven-inch 45, which boasted similar sound
characteristics (at first, anyway), but was much smaller and cheaper than the LP. And,
like the 78, it held only one song per side.
There had, however, always been a market for recordings
that lasted longer than two or three minutes, and this need was filled admirably by
Columbia's LP. The RCA response was the same as with 78s: the "album," a group
of individual 45s that could be played sequentially on a record changer (the company
supported this concept by flooding the market with inexpensive 45 changers). Many early
LPs were also released as 45- and 78-rpm albums.
Eventually, it became obvious that the two formats could
co-exist. The singles market, which remained dominant for about a quarter of a century
after the introduction of the LP, was best served by RCA's 45; collections and classical
music were more suited to the 12" LP (the 10" version disappeared early in the
1950s).
But RCA didn't give up the fight easily; adapting the
technique of the variable-pitch groove to their 45s, they came up with the Extended-Play
record (EP), which managed to fit two songs on each side of the disc, cutting the number
of discs needed for an album in half. This never really caught on, but single EPs, with
just four songs, enjoyed a brief popularity in the late 1950s (and somewhat longer in
Europe). Ultimately, however, an intermediate format between single and LP fulfilled no
real market need, and so the EP quietly disappeared.
Record changers
Few things better illustrate the shift in audio fashion
setting to the Orient than the demise of the record changer. Changers had been very
popular in pre-LP days as a way to obtain relatively long playing times, particularly with
classical recordings. There was, of course, a short pause every three or four minutes as
the records dropped, but at least the listener didn't have to jump up constantly in order
to hear a complete symphony.
When the 33-1/3-rpm record took over, turntable
manufacturers in Europe and North America added the new speed, and refined their products,
but continued to make mostly changers. Single-play turntables were popular with high-end
audiophiles, and there was a belief that these were gentler on records, but most consumers
on both sides of the Atlantic continued to prefer changers. Consequently, the companies
that made them -- Garrard, Dual, Miracord, et al -- dominated the turntable
markets.
The situation was markedly different in Japan. Perhaps in
emulation of American high-end preferences, no Japanese audiophile would be caught dead
with a changer, so Japanese audio companies did not make them. In the 1970s, the major
Japanese turntable manufacturers began a massive marketing push overseas, to complement
their already dominant position in electronics. A combination of high-level engineering
and attractive pricing accomplished this, and Japanese turntables soon began to take over
the market.
In an astonishingly short time Americans abandoned the
changer. The traditional leaders in turntable sales -- the changer makers -- were slow to
follow the trend (some never did), and were quickly supplanted by the Japanese
manufacturers. Those that managed to survive did switch to single-play units, but too late
to regain their former positions.
Elcaset
From the time the US Army brought back all those
Magnetophons from a defeated Germany until digital audio became a practical reality,
open-reel tape was generally accepted as the ideal recording medium. True, it has often
been demonstrated in recent years that, at its best, the conventional phonograph record
exhibits noise and distortion characteristics superior to those of tape, but tape won out
on its ability to be recorded, edited, and erased easily.
Open-reel's major drawback was that it was a drag to use.
Professionals and the more dedicated amateurs might put up with the awkwardness of
threading tapes, but most average consumers couldn't be bothered. So tape was destined to
be the preserve of the few, unless some way could be found to simplify its handling. Many
companies applied themselves to this problem, and a lot of ingenious devices appeared --
briefly -- mostly housing the tape in some sort of cartridge that could just be shoved
into a slot.
In North America, the version that appeared to be destined
for success was the four-track cartridge, adapted from the broadcast "carts"
that are still sometimes used in radio stations today. This cartridge held an endless loop
of quarter-inch tape that contained two pairs of stereo tracks conforming to the basic
configuration used in consumer open-reel machines of the day, except that they were
recorded in the one direction rather than two.
This cartridge, as it turned out, was only a temporary
solution. It soon vanished, to be replaced by an improved version called the eight-track
cartridge. This also used standard tape, but by making the tracks half as wide, twice as
much material could be recorded on the limited amount of tape that could be contained
inside the cartridge shell, with only a slight compromise in sound quality.
Both the four- and eight-track cartridges provided ease of
operation, but they had their drawbacks. For one thing, they were difficult for consumers
to record on because they were endless loops of tape -- unless you were very careful, you
either ended up with several minutes of blank tape at the end of a recording or the end
overlapped the beginning. If you made a mistake while recording, you had to let the tape
wind through to the end/beginning either at playing speed or at a very slow fast-forward
before starting over.
Also, the method of winding the tape in a loop made tangles
very common, and speed irregularities -- wow and flutter -- a constant problem. The main
complaint about these cartridges, however, was that they were designed to provide minimal
performance at a time when tape technology was still fairly primitive, and they never
improved.
The main rival to the eight-track, although more popular at
first in Europe and Japan than in North America, was the "Musicassette"
developed by Philips. This had the advantage of being small and relatively uncomplicated
-- it was like a miniature open-reel system in a plastic shell. But it was never designed
as a hi-fi medium; rather, its virtues were convenience and portability. So the fact that
the tape traveled at 1-7/8 ips (half that of the eight-track cartridge), and that the
tracks were extremely narrow so that four of them would fit on a tape only 1/6th of an
inch wide, didn't matter very much to the original designers.
Over the years, the cassette underwent a dramatic
improvement, but it was still not considered true hi-fi for a very long time. In the
mid-1970s, therefore, several Japanese companies tentatively introduced a new format. Like
the cassette, it came in a plastic shell that contained two reels, and it shared the
exotic new tape formulations, mechanical improvements, and electronic wizardry that had
become common in cassette equipment. But it used quarter-inch tape, allowing for wider
tracks, and ran at a higher speed. The Elcaset, as it was called, was designed to offer
both the performance of open-reel tape and the convenience of the cassette. Only one
company (Sony) actually took this format beyond the prototype stage, and a competing
European equivalent called the Unisette never even got that far.
Both these formats failed because they purported to solve
problems that most consumers didn't feel existed. The improvement over the standard
cassette was minimal, as it turned out, in spite of the considerable cost difference. The
lack of compatibility with the millions of cassettes already on the market was another
stumbling block. And, in the end, it appeared that the markets for "quality" and
"convenience" were quite separate, and the Elcaset satisfied neither.
Motional feedback
The speaker has always been the most difficult of
components. Spectral balance, distortion, dispersion, resonance, power handling -- all are
constant concerns of the speaker designer, and doubtless always will be.
These all have to do with performance in the speaker's
normal operating frequency range. Over the years, however, there have been repeated
efforts to extend, rather than improve that range. In the early years, for example, a
popular item was an add-on tweeter intended to assist certain speakers that were somewhat
weak in the high end. It was irrelevant that such devices were rarely well matched to the
speakers they were intended to complement -- thousands were sold in the belief that they
improved matters.
More common, however, have been techniques to extend a
speaker's range at the other end of the spectrum: to produce more bass.
One of the most technically elegant techniques for
flattening out a speaker's response curve, particularly at the low end, was the
motional-feedback speaker, which enjoyed a brief moment of fashionability some years back.
Essentially, the woofer incorporated a sensing device that detected actual cone movement;
this was electronically compared with the intended cone movement (i.e., the original audio
signal), and the signal altered to make the speaker conform. This not only flattened out
the curve within the speaker's range, but by doing so increased low-frequency energy.
Two things put an end to this sort of technique. First, it
was expensive and unfamiliar to all but the most technically literate. Second, there were
dramatic improvements in conventional speaker designs, making technical niceties like
motional feedback, however ingenious, unnecessary.
Four-channel sound
The great disastrous experiment. Audio's biggest failure.
The triumph of greed over music.
Four-channel sound is everybody's favorite example of a
massive audio foul-up. And yet, it was founded on the correct observation that a pair of
speakers can only produce part of the environment that accompanies a live performance; to
recreate the whole acoustic effect, it would be necessary to reproduce (or simulate)
electronically the ambience of a concert hall, or nightclub, or whatever. When done
properly, four-channel sound could be staggeringly realistic, and even such related
measures as binaural recording and various sorts of delay lines could offer some of the
same effects.
Four-channel failed for a number of reasons, not the least
of which was the belief on the part of many consumers that it was simply a cynical ploy by
manufacturers to sell more speakers. Added to this was the fact that effective
quadraphonic demonstrations were extremely difficult to mount, so relatively few potential
customers ever heard one properly done.
More to the point, however, was the fact that the initial
promotion of four-channel sound was done by the equipment manufacturers, while the record
companies waited on the sidelines to see if anybody was interested. Few people were
because there were so few records to play on the new components. By the time the record
companies became enthusiastic about four-channel, the hardware companies had given up, so
when the records did appear in reasonable numbers, there was nothing to play them on.
Still, it left some technical legacies. The SQ matrix
system developed by CBS resurfaced as one element of Dolby Pro Logic, providing surround
sound for videocassettes and videodiscs. And technology that is still employed in many FM
tuners -- the phase-locked loop -- was perfected as a means of detecting the subcarrier on
JVC's CD-4 discrete disc. So although four-channel disappeared unmourned, its progeny
still gives audio pleasure.
One of the fascinations of audio is that it has been, and
continues to be, very fluid. Technology is developed but sometimes fails to take hold. But
as often as not it crops up somewhere else, doing some other job that would be impossible
had it not been for the wrong turns along the way.
...Ian G. Masters
ian@mastersonaudio.com
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