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Computer Audio Asylum Music servers and other computer based digital audio technologies. |
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In Reply to: RE: Rapid change??? posted by Old Listener on February 15, 2012 at 22:56:39:
How about some real progress rather than just change?
"Once you get beyond the technical issues, there is the chicken and egg issue of the size of the market. An Ethernet DAC isn't very attractive unless there is a large installed base of devices it can talk to."
I think the market is heading that way actually. There is the Apple Airport and the Squeezebox stuff certainly has it's followers. While I consider it's implementation a kludge (I know, many don't) it wouldn't take much to clean it up and make it a lot more robust while still maintaining backward compatibility with their extant systems.
The obvious missing element, which is more a mindset than anything tangible, is regarding speakers and headphones as rendering devices on the network similar to printers, scanners, storage... That topology has so very many advantages that it's obvious even to the most casual observer (me) it's what we should do. Power amps and speakers are a SYSTEM. Always have been to folks intent on optimizing their performance. Source and Control are also a logical system as it the remote controlling of them.
Naturally in the way of entertainment and computer systems these different chunks can be mish-mashed together in a zillion different ways and still do the job, but in my mind the jobs they need to do is pretty clear.
As an off the wall example I bought a new printer a while back, think I told you, a Brother that interfaces via RF, USB or Ethernet. So-long Centronics cable... Substitute "speaker" for "printer" and that's just what I want right down to my speakers having the little built in web browsers so I can adjust them and see when they are out of paper. Or, er Headroom!
A rendering device is a rendering device. I want to send music to my wireless headphones or speakers. But I would also like to send them PDF's when my eyes get tired. Yes, my Kindle and maybe my ipad for all I know will read it to me but why shouldn't it use the same audio rendering device as my stereo. And TV. I guess, but I don't know, that it's already a done deal if you use an Apple computer and iTunes, but I loath every aspect of the latter from the UI to the sound so we need options.
The transition will take at most one generation of products. Using an automotive analogy, a high-school friend of mine was given a mint Chrysler from the late '40s that looked like something out of the untouchables and had a full sofa for the back seat. No, let's not pursue that... In addition to the casting couch it also had a "safety clutch". It was an automatic you see, probably one of the first, and they KNEW that folks wouldn't trust them so they put in a clutch that had molded on it's footrest "SAFETY CLUTCH". I read the manual (could it have been leather bound?) to see what the deal was and it said: "Don't use it." and went on in some detail about how it should never be necessary to touch it for the life of the car but it was available in the unlikely event that a failure should occur in the transmission.
Of course powered speakers are already around and widely used and acclaimed and yet have captured little (I think) of the "audiophile" market. If I were in the speaker business I'd put in a safety clutch consisting of a wired input in addition to the wireless LAN connection so that those Kilobuck speaker cables could be used for one more generation... AND, they would of course protect themselves from driver failure due to overload or defects and in addition I'd have it downward adjustable so the user could adjust the maximum time/frequency/level profile to protect his hearing if anything prior in the chain malfunctions including his brain. Sort of the ultimate safety clutch.
And naturally the network/amplifier part of it can be physically separate from the speakers as another transition mechanism allowing use of existing speakers but of course losing the crossover and Eq. advantages.
A lot of us would appreciate an optional preamp that sweeps up all our existing stuff and includes the networking to do things the new way would be nice and comfortable. Just using a computer as the source eliminates most of the need for such a thing but that seems like an anathema for many.
We CAN change! And it can be easy, safe and affordable. Back to the printer, this new $100 one prints 3X faster and at a higher resolution than my $1600 LJ4 did. I'm sure however that it has fewer maximum copies but at my age so do I! Having the speaker folks, the cable folks and the amplifier folks all be different people is bound to drive up our cost, increase our frustration and decrease the performance. Such a deal...
Words from a "hip trendsetter" wannabe!
Nostrarickus
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Follow Ups
- RE: Rapid change??? - rick_m 16:17:18 02/16/12 (3)
- RE: Rapid change??? - Old Listener 21:28:09 02/16/12 (2)
- RE: Rapid change??? - rick_m 10:35:05 02/17/12 (1)
- RE: Rapid change??? - Old Listener 15:33:18 02/17/12 (0)
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