The New Logo for High-Resolution Audio
A couple of weeks ago, I was invited into a special listening room at Panasonic HQ to hear the new Technics High-Resolution Audio system which has a retail price of $70,000. I asked them to put on a FLAC version of The Who’s “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and…wow. Even though I’ve heard the song a billion times, I was able to pick up nuances that I didn’t know were there.
For example, I had no idea that there was an acoustic guitar playing in the left channel of the entire song. There are also a series of handclaps buried in the mix in one of the pre-choruses. And don’t get me started on all the new John Entwhistle notes I heard. Then we listened to “Black” from Pearl Jam. Same effect. Amazing.
In short, I am a fan of Hi-Res Audio. A big one. Here’s hoping that this marks a turning point in the world’s downward spiral when it comes to appreciating true high-fidelity music.
The US industry is hoping that since the home theatre market is pretty tapped out and its margins squished razor thin, people will reconsider buying proper two-channel stereos. As part of this new push, there’s a new logo designating material and gear capable of offering digital music in maximum glory.
To try out some Hi-Res Music, go to TechnicsTracks. You’ll be glad you did.
Well, at $70,000 for an initial price, it’s about 13 times the cost of Video tape machines when they first came out, figuring for inflation. If we calcuate a similar rate of time that VCRs took to come down to afordable levels, roughly 10 years before a family could afford one, and 20 before they were cheap, it will take roughly 130 years for me to be able to afford this.
But you need to take into account the proliferation of technology on a global scale, and the economics of manufacturing. These days the cost of technology drops much more rapidly and will continue to do so into the future, as the the economics of affordable technology isn’t linear but rather exponential as technology is rendered more affordable, more quickly, due to many factors that were not available 20-30 years ago.