Whatever happened to......

[The_Burg]

All the new technologies that were supposed to revolutionise Hi Fi?

Sitting at work listening to music on some ancient Yamaha 'ActiveServo' speakers, and actually considering they are tiny, plastic and cheap they actually sound pretty darn good, nearfield anyway.

So what other great new technologies came and went?

A few to start Kenwood / Trio 'Sigma Drive' extending the feedback look to the speaker terminals.

Phillips 'Notional Feedback' speakers, designed to correct errors at the speaker via sensors in the speaker coils. (never heard them but allegedly they were rather good till they self destructed). Tried again by Tannoy in their 'ALF' sub.

Amstrads 'Tricordial' turntable platter, (i think that it was called anyway.

Whatever happened to all these ideas and why has the industry stood still?

[miniman]

The real improvements, surely, have been in the innards of amps, better DAC technology, better materials for speaker construction and so forth? The examples you mention are gimmicks at best...

[metro lover]

I see that subjest on annoying topics that end in .... to get you to read on went far

[The_Burg]

miniman said:

The real improvements, surely, have been in the innards of amps, better DAC technology, better materials for speaker construction and so forth? The examples you mention are gimmicks at best...

Some are pointless gimmicks true enough, but where is the inovation?
Some of the best amps were designed in the 50's.

[miniman]

metro lover said:

I see that subjest on annoying topics that end in .... to get you to read on went far

Beautifully constructed, grammatically perfect in every way, coherent, all that one could want for in a moan.

[miniman]

The_Burg said:

miniman said:

The real improvements, surely, have been in the innards of amps, better DAC technology, better materials for speaker construction and so forth? The examples you mention are gimmicks at best...

Some are pointless gimmicks true enough, but where is the inovation?
Some of the best amps were designed in the 50's.

Absolutely, and I guess the real problem is that improving on them is one thing, but doing so in such a way as to make the resulting product affordable to a reasonable volume of consumers is another altogether. Hence the invented, marketing-speak "features" that we saw in the 80s and 90s.

For example, I have a Sony amp from 1992 which has "Super Legato Linear" (presumably a kind of capacitor that stands up straight) and "Source Direct" (meaning "uses a very low quality switch to bypass the tone controls"). Neither of which were ever going to significantly improve the sound quality of a £99 amp.

Best example of marketing nonsense? Soon after the advent of CD, my mate had a cassette / radio thing with "Digital" plastered all over it, and in very small print: "Digital Clock".

[metro lover]

miniman said:

metro lover said:

I see that subjest on annoying topics that end in .... to get you to read on went far

Beautifully constructed, grammatically perfect in every way, coherent, all that one could want for in a moan.

I did notice when i was writing, the words weren't flowing very well, but thats what hangover does to me. I'm very sorry, and it won't happen again. Is that what you wanted me to say fker??

[miniman]

metro lover said:

Is that what you wanted me to say, fker??

Edited for gramatical correctness.

[talkssense]

Never goes down well here, but I'll pitch in anyway. The products might not be to everyones taste, but Bang & Olufsen really do invest huge amounts of money into their R&D, and have some genuinely useful and innovative technologies in their speakers.

ICEpower amps. Developed by B&O and are incredibly efficient, finding their way into other manufactures kit such as B&W.

ALT - Acoustic Lens Technology. Licensed from elsewhere, but developed and bought into production by B&O.

Self Calibration - the BeoLab 5 self calibrates to the room you place it in.

Like I say, not trying to convert the haters, but they really have invested R&D into some good technology.

[Asterix]

Not sure it has revolutionised HiFi but as with the B&O self Calibration - the Audessey set up stuff is very handy.