[HN Gopher] Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died
___________________________________________________________________
Lou Ottens, inventor of cassette tape, has died
Author : Anon84
Score : 354 points
Date : 2021-03-10 11:25 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (netherlandsnewslive.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (netherlandsnewslive.com)
| freebreakfast wrote:
| There is a great documentary[0] about the cassette. They explore
| its creation, history, and what it meant (and means) to people.
| They interview Ottens extensively as part of the film.
|
| [0] https://www.cassettefilm.com/
| hilbert42 wrote:
| It saddens me that Lou Ottens has died; as so often happens we
| often only get to reflect on the lives and achievements of
| influential people after they've died, before that we often know
| very little about them. It's especially so for those who work in
| technology, as their work is often hidden behind corporate
| structures, thus they go unnoticed by the public.
|
| If you'd asked me before this article appeared who Lou Ottens was
| then I'd have replied _' I'm not sure but it rings a bell'._ As
| an audiophile, I recall reading many articles about Philips and
| Sony and the politics of cassette tape technology after it
| appeared on the market. At the time Hi-Fi and electronics
| magazines were full of articles about cassettes so my sense of
| deja vu upon hearing his name likely came from that immersion.
|
| The audio cassette played a very significant--even special--role
| in 20th Century audio recording technology and with his passing
| we've lost a direct link to not only cassette technology but also
| its history.
|
| In those days, one of the major thrusts of Hi-Fi was to improve
| the signal-to-noise ratio, which, by today's standards, was
| pretty marginal, so like many audiophiles of the day I initially
| derided its introduction and considered it a scientific step
| backward thinking its only practical use would be for Dictaphones
| and other low fidelity uses. When the cassette first appeared its
| performance was in fact only suitable for low fidelity voice,
| thus reinforcing our perceptions. Music sounded terrible and its
| wow and flutter (W&F) specifications were woeful, so too were its
| noise figures, frequency response not to mention its high
| distortion.
|
| That perception soon changed because the audio cassette was
| immensely practical compared to what was already in use--that, of
| course, was the reel-to-reel tape recorder. And reel-to-reels
| were very expensive for the home user to buy, especially so if
| he/she wanted a good one that could complete with the best
| fidelity had to offer, which for the public, was LP records.
| Recorders such as the Tandberg models 64 and 74 met the quality
| criteria but they were hellishly expensive (I could never afford
| to buy a new one and it was only some years after the Model 74
| was released that I managed to buy one second-hand).
|
| _(As I mentioned, back then achieving a good balance between the
| best signal-to-noise ratio and minimum distortion in the analogue
| domain was a never-ending battle and about the best one could
| achieve was [?]60 dB at 2 to 3% THD (Total Harmonic
| Distortion)--even for professional tape equipment such as Ampex
| studio reel-to-reels this was a bit of a struggle and they
| required continual tweaking (head alignment, bias level
| adjustments, etc.) to keep them within these specs.)_
|
| Nevertheless, a sort of miracle happened; as cassettes were
| introduced in appliances such as car radios their quality
| improved dramatically even to the extent that some people started
| to use them to supplement their home Hi-Fi systems.
|
| Eventually, at the pinnacle of its evolution, _ca_ 1982--some 19
| years after its introduction--the audio cassette had become a
| very capable recording medium to the extent that its audio
| fidelity had almost rivalled professional reel-to-reel recorders.
| This was achieved with an optimal combination of low-noise, high
| dynamic range _[metal and similar high coercively]_ tapes
| together with very well designed cassette recorders such as the
| Nakamichi Dragon and Nakamichi 680. These used Dolby and other
| noise reduction techniques, however they never made it to true
| professional quality but it was a damn good effort just the same.
| By the mid 1970s many a home listener was very satisfied and
| content with fidelity available from the humble cassette.
|
| Even I succumbed. In the mid 1970s I tried to get a Nakamichi 700
| duty free when my father was visiting Asia but that failed
| through poor logistics. Then around 1980-81 I attended a trade
| demo arranged by the local Nakamichi agent and the draw card was
| Mr Nakamichi himself demonstrating his company's then latest
| product, the Nakamichi 680. Several years after that I managed to
| buy a little-used 680 for an excellent price. The 680's fame
| revolved around the fact that in addition to normal speed
| recording of 1 7/8"/sec it also had a half-speed mode of
| 15/16"/sec. At that speed and using the right high quality tape,
| it could achieve a very respectable bandwidth of 15kHz at <=2%
| THD with a [?]60dB S/N whilst also holding a W&F of [?]0.1-0.2%.
| (Of course, the 680's performance at 1 7/8"/sec was considerably
| better; its frequency response at this speed was in excess of 20
| kHz).
|
| The fact that the humble cassette had progressed this far
| technically in only about 17 years was a remarkable achievement
| to say the least. It reached its pinnacle several years later
| with the Nakamichi Dragon, which has always been regarded as the
| best cassette tape recorder ever made. Mind you, these remarkably
| excellent audio specifications were only ever achieved on
| machines of this caliber, most others that were considered in the
| Hi-Fi class performed very well but never to heights of the best
| Nakamichi machines.
|
| However, keeping the Nakamichi 680 in top shape and in full spec
| wasn't always straightforward. I broke the head azimuth alignment
| knob and I returned it to the local agent for repair only to
| receive it back in worse condition than I sent it. After
| whingeing loudly that the service was substandard for a machine
| of Nakamichi's class, the agent returned it to Japan for repair.
| When I received it back several months later it was still not
| performing up to standard (like most organizations, service
| usually comes a poor second to getting product out the factory
| door). The solution was to repair it myself which I did.
| Fortunately--unlike these days where _service manual_ is an
| unknown term--I had the excellent Nakamichi 680 service manual to
| go by, so servicing it was dead easy.
|
| I still have my Nakamichi 680 some 37 years later and it still
| performs to specifications.
|
| I reckon that when Lou Ottens had gotten to see cassette machines
| of the 680 and Dragon class he must have been pretty pleased with
| what he and his team had achieved at Philips in the early 1960s.
| apples_oranges wrote:
| "We were little boys who had fun playing."
|
| I still sometimes feel like this when programming. What a great
| job this is..
| [deleted]
| wdb wrote:
| Never knew it was a Dutch invention!
| gshubert17 wrote:
| He was 94 years old. An obituary with more information is at
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/03/10/cassette-tape-and-cd-inventor-...
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| Meta commentary: huh, the site feels off, it looks like yet
| another content farm. The author byline is "jenifferruffalo" and
| she writes all the articles on that site?
|
| OK, at the bottom of the article, it shows the site just ripped
| and machine-translated content from Dutch, explaining the weird
| translation of "Not really proud". It even saw the "subscribe to
| our newsletter" box, "invalid email address" error message as
| well as the source news site's "read our privacy policy" and
| integrated those things into the article.
|
| I guess the reason why this site exists is clear: steal content,
| get the Google hits and AdSense money.
| mertd wrote:
| It's fascinating that someone, within their lifetime, can invent
| something, watch it become a household item in the entire world
| and then fade so far into obscurity that new generations only
| find out about it from encyclopedias.
| tqi wrote:
| The increasing pace of technology is really fascinating to
| think about, especially when comparing to something like
| printing[1].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_printing
| faichai wrote:
| The humble cassette was a core part of my upbringing. Creating
| and sharing mixtapes a great way of signalling affection. I
| treasure the few times it happened, because as a nerd with social
| anxiety my interactions with the opposite sex developed a lot
| later than most people. Forgive me:
|
| Oh Frances, how beautiful you were,
|
| Mixed Dinosaur Jr tape I did share,
|
| You returned another, so eclectic,
|
| My crush on you fades electric.
| iso1631 wrote:
| Age 94.
|
| I'm really glad he managed to see 90.
| [deleted]
| smoldesu wrote:
| I love the character of cassette tapes. They aren't my primary
| medium for listening to music, but I'll be damned if they don't
| sound pleasant to the ear.
| niklasd wrote:
| I once visited an art exhibition where the theme was art objects
| that change while being displayed. Once exhibit which I
| particularly enjoyed was a cassette that was being played, while
| its outrolled tape was tightend around some bars in the room. So
| the tape slowly grinded down and changed the (cryptic) sound that
| was being played. It was a super cool idea, which also played
| with the experience of an unwound cassette tape, that everyone
| (who is a bit older) knows.
| mumphster wrote:
| Neat! If you're ever interested in more of that kind of stuff
| check out Hainbach, heres a similar thing to what you described
| with some really great background info on the technique and
| tech https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVy9ABT5-iY
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| My youth would not have been the same - we made our own mixtapes
| back then and the good ones were made on TDK chrome tapes.
|
| This was before we had internet (it came 1991) and our local
| radio stations back then never played funk or R&B music so one
| night I listened on AM to an overseas station and heard this
| awesome song and I taped it and listened to it over and over
| despite the bad AM quality.
|
| Later I found it was "When Doves Cry" by Prince and I became a
| lifelong fan.
| booblik wrote:
| This is nuts, but apparently he doesn't even have a wiki page.
| Someone has to rectify.
| pwdisswordfish0 wrote:
| He has an extensive article in the Dutch Wikipedia, with a
| star, and shorter ones in German and Polish :) The Dutch one
| seems well-cited, so it would probably be okay to just
| translate it.
| makeworld wrote:
| He does now, but it's terribly sparse.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Ottens
| sarvasana wrote:
| Well, thanks for all the plastic waste.
| KozmoNau7 wrote:
| The cassette tape really is an astounding invention, or I guess a
| great packaging and convenience improvement, compared to existing
| tape formats.
|
| A revolution in music portability, distribution (both licensed
| and DIY), home recording, you name it. All kicked off by "little
| boys who had fun playing".
|
| Tape trading is still big in certain circles, especially within
| the punk and black metal milieus. Some albums, EPs and demos get
| their only physical releases ever on limited edition cassette
| tapes, both because it is inexpensive, easy to DIY and fits the
| lo-fi aesthetics.
|
| Where vinyl has a strong presence among audiophiles (for various
| mostly imagined reasons) and was always a format for those with
| money to spend, the humble cassette tape was the format of choice
| for the youth, the working class and people on the go, and it
| still carries that down-to-earth appeal today.
|
| I know at least for me growing up in the 80s and 90s in a family
| with just enough money to get by, hand-me-down cassette tapes
| were how I experienced music, not to mention how we experimented
| with recording our voices and playing them back at different
| speeds, and learned what happened when you play the same bit of
| tape over and over again because it had a really funny bit on it.
| Getting my first CD and CD player was exotic and felt like
| science fiction in comparison to the trusty old cassette tape.
|
| I keep a drawer of a few old and obsolete physical formats that
| meant something special to me. My cassette tapes of Deep Purple
| In Rock, Machine Head, Sgt. Pepper's, and The Triumph of Death
| are there, next to the 3.5" floppy disks and Minidiscs.
| theandrewbailey wrote:
| > Getting my first CD and CD player was exotic and felt like
| science fiction in comparison to the trusty old cassette tape.
|
| Putting a laser into almost anything makes it feel like it's
| from the future.
| lc9er wrote:
| Tapes were fun. I grew up playing in bands. Demos were all
| recorded to cassette and shared among band members for
| reference or maybe passed on to clubs. I was right at the tail
| end of this, when CD burners became cheap and then we were
| expected to deliver demos as a cd.
| acomjean wrote:
| I love the humility.
|
| I grew up in the era of cassettes. I'd tape songs of the radio as
| a kid. In high school and college I would tape my records and the
| new "cds" so my music would be portable (Walkman and parents
| car).
|
| My brothers and I bought a really good Yamaha three head cassette
| player. We did some a/b testing with cds and with Dolby c it was
| really hard to tell the difference.
|
| Though with Walkman you'd have to clean the rubber rollers when
| they got a little gummed up and there was always the danger of
| the tape failing and getting pulled out.
| aksss wrote:
| I think a cassette fresh out of the case was great, sound
| quality wise on good equipment, the big complaint was the wear
| and stretching over time. Then of course there was the eating
| of the tape, which you could recover from usually but there was
| usually a scar in the sound quality that you'd learn to ignore.
| TonyTrapp wrote:
| I recorded radio shows and other stuff to hundreds of compact
| cassettes as a kid. Years later, my parents insisted on throwing
| them all away because I didn't listen to them anyway. They'd be a
| goldmine now. They were all chrome tapes!
| gcheong wrote:
| What's interesting to me beyond the invention itself is all the
| technology that was developed around it. For example my friend's
| Dad had a Nakamichi cassette player that would physically flip
| the cassette to play the other side. And on the other end of
| course using a pencil to advance the tape or wind up slack if it
| accidentally got caught in the player.
| [deleted]
| agumonkey wrote:
| Countless memories over this 'limited' medium :)
|
| ps: I don't know how much an urban legend it is, but jdilla
| (famous in the hiphop beatmaker circles) is said to have learned
| his very very skanky sense of rhythm through a bare tape recorder
| that he used to overlay various samples by rewinding it with a
| pencil.
| uberdru wrote:
| CDs were going nowhere until Dire Straits released "Brothers in
| Arms", 13 May 1985.
| tibbydudeza wrote:
| For me it was Kate Bush "Hounds Of Love" that made me buy a
| Sony Discman.
| gjvr wrote:
| A little anecdote/legend from the Philips Research Labs (Nat.
| Lab.):
|
| When the team demonstrated the first CD they drilled some holes
| in them, and showed: "Look how robust, they even work when they
| are this damaged" (paraphrased).
|
| In reality the locations of these holes were chosen _very_
| precisely. Not sure if this is true, but this is a story that my
| colleagues told me in the 90 's...
|
| Rest In Peace Lou Ottens.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| This seems unlikely. CDs don't have physical sectors. But they
| do have generous error correction, with cross-interleaved
| versions of the data combined with parity spread out along the
| "groove".
|
| The rule of thumb is that error correction can compensate for
| gaps of up to 2.4mm. So if a hole is smaller a CD should be
| able to cope.
| colanderman wrote:
| At the very least, the holes would have to have been placed
| such that the CD remained balanced I would think.
| LanceH wrote:
| A cd at music player speeds is somewhat forgiving.
| clydethefrog wrote:
| Fun stuff I read since his passing yesterday in the Dutch
| newspapers.
|
| Although he had indeed humility about his contribution to the
| cassette tape and the CD, he also was frustrated what Sony did in
| this department. He wanted the CD to be 11,5 cm instead of 12 cm
| and was disappointed Sony sold the first CD and invented the
| concept of a walkman instead of Philips.
|
| His opinion about cassette tapes and vinyl having a revival
| because of the analog experience?
|
| "I am not a psychologist, but that music experience is of course
| all nonsense. Nothing can match the sound of the CD. It is
| absolutely noise and rumble free. That never worked with tape.
| But who am I to say what's better, I'm over ninety and have old
| ears. I have made a lot of record players and I know that the
| distortion with vinyl is much higher. But some people call it
| "warm audio." I think people mostly hear what they want to hear.
| But there are always madmen who want to look back to the past.
| There is always a market for that."
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| what is the advantage of 11.5 over 12?
| drcode wrote:
| 0.5cm smaller.
| [deleted]
| rsneekes wrote:
| According to this [1] interview because it's approx the same
| size as a cassette tape.
|
| [1] (pdf, dutch)
| http://docs.mfbfreaks.com/div/De_Ingenieur_Lou_Ottens.pdf
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| Philips decided on it because it would make the case closer
| in size to cassette tapes, and they already had a factory
| capable of producing it. I guess 12 cm would have required
| more retooling, which would cost them some of their advantage
| over Sony.
|
| Source: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-music/why-is-a-
| cd-74-minu...
|
| "Philips engineer Kees A. Schouhamer Immink writes that
| Philips were pushing for the CD to be close in size to the
| cassette tape, whereas Sony were pushing for a slightly
| larger 12cm disc, partially because they knew that Philips
| already had a factory capable of producing 11.5cm CDs and if
| they could decide on 12cm as the industry standard then they
| would erase Philips' head start in manufacturing."
| marshmallow_12 wrote:
| Interesting that the universal standard was created for
| such a petty reason. I was hoping to hear that there was
| some subtle but huge difference in 0.5cm. But no, it's just
| to screw Philips over, and we all have to play along.
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| It's not like Sony and Philips are friends. They're
| competitors. And the reason Philips wanted 11.5 cm is
| because it gave _them_ an advantage, aka just to screw
| Sony over. This is normal business, not some moral
| failing.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Actually it is a moral failing. All that equipment had to
| be end of lifed earlier and much more work had to be put
| in. More garbage, more wasted energy. I can't see how
| that is anything but a moral failing.
| rexpop wrote:
| I agree, and am glad you recognize it as such. When Sony
| erased Philips' "head-start", they obsoleted an
| investment made with the finite endowment of global
| resources (not to mention _time_ ). It's an underhanded
| tactic which disadvantages everyone to advantage a few.
| aksss wrote:
| I, for one, appreciate the additional 2MB of storage that
| gave us. /s
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| I wonder how many more minutes of audio 0.5 cm gets us?
| ChuckMcM wrote:
| See also JVC's "VHS" vs Sony's "BetaMax". It is the way of
| standards warfare.
|
| It definitely annoyed me that media cabinets that held an
| even number of cassette tape drawers "across" would not fit
| an integral number of CD drawers.
| rexpop wrote:
| > It is the way of standards warfare.
|
| Is it _the_ way, or merely _a_ way, and only _the_ way so
| far in our brief history? I hate to see defeatism around
| gross inefficiencies like these.
| the-dude wrote:
| Timmer, the Philips CEO at the time, is on record [0] saying
| it had to do with the max recording length.
|
| He claims Sony's CEO liked one particular recording of
| Beethoven's 9th so much, he insisted it had to fit on a CD.
| And this particular recording was 74mins, 33 seconds.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kytmE4mrXWM, Dutch
|
| edit: It was not Timmer, but Kees Immink and Hans Mons @ 8:25
| dn3500 wrote:
| Immink says the myth is that Sony exec Ohga's wife insisted
| on the 74 minute length, based on a very slow performance
| of Beethoven 9, which normally isn't that long. But he also
| says it's not true. This is in his classic paper on the
| history of the CD.
|
| https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322951358_Shannon_
| B...
| duxup wrote:
| IIRC I recall the lack of 'warm tones' on early CDs was due to
| the technique they used with early CDs to transfer the audio
| from tape to the CD.
|
| I know my old CDs very much had a weird sorta cold, almost
| distant sound and I felt that later CDs did not.
| coldtea wrote:
| Well, vinyl is indeed "warmer audio" in a sense, in that it is
| more compressed and has higher saturation (due to the format
| properties), both of which can sound naturally pleasant. (It's
| also more tactile, which adds to the warmness psychologically).
|
| CDs didn't have that great dynamic range or noise floor anyway
| (they were copied from -usually- 2inch master tapes, so tapes
| were still involved, and thus noise). 24bit/48 or 96Hz, on the
| other hand, now we're talking (but still most people wouldn't
| hear much of a difference in most mixed music, and in the
| majority of cheap headphones/speakers).
| lc9er wrote:
| > That never worked with tape.
|
| 80's thrash metal and tapes go together really well. The
| cutting, trebly sound of tapes really works with the staccato,
| percussive sounds of bands like Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica,
| etc.
|
| There's been a resurgence of bands putting out limited runs on
| cassette. I think a lot of this is nostalgia (often from people
| too young for much exposure to tape). Cassette sound quality is
| definitely inferior, but that can be adopted as part of the
| overall sound.
| rowanG077 wrote:
| Or you Just add that sound in the mix yourself...
| vanderZwan wrote:
| There's also lo-fi hip hop, where adding bad radio, tape or
| vinyl static to songs is basically a given (as the name kind
| of implies I guess).
|
| I think it makes a kind of sense, in the same way white noise
| can be soothing
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| lo-fi basement dweller black metal is another one, I mean
| feast your ears on
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oFnjWS4cpU. Ironically,
| that album has been released on everything; cassettes,
| FLAC, 4 lp wooden box set, and a wooden USB stick with
| 128kbit MP3. The medium is part of the art?
|
| Anyway, taste aside I can appreciate this particular artist
| and their work, it's a lot of midrange noise but the
| musical elements (mostly percussion tbh) emerge from the
| swamp with a good listen.
| arp242 wrote:
| A very long time ago some of the Darkthrone tracks I
| downloaded from Napster were corrupted and had
| glitches/noise in them. I didn't know they were glitches,
| and I listened to this for years and thought it sounded
| great. I actually regret not having those "damaged" MP3s
| any more.
|
| 60s-era blues is another good example. The recording
| equipment at the time certainly wasn't bad, but it was
| not yet perfected. It added a certain sound to recordings
| from the time that I kind of miss in later recordings.
| jasonjayr wrote:
| Way back when mp3 encoders weren't very good, I could
| hear some of the compression artifacts that were common
| in the commonly used reference encoder.
|
| I pointed out that sound to someone who thought it was
| part of the song and forever cursed them with also
| hearing them everywhere. It's like learning about kerning
| ...
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Or leaming about keming...
|
| You may enjoy these pieces a local ceramic artist made
| for me:
|
| https://geary.smugmug.com/Art/i-qCBqjqb
| c5karl wrote:
| Compact Disc audio is uncompressed.
| gavinmckenzie wrote:
| To me this is analogous to the incredibly common practice of
| applying scanned grain from 16mm or 35mm film stock in
| digital cinematography workflows, making the result "feel"
| more like film -- or our expectations and perceptions of
| cinema. Sometimes high fidelity media isn't what we really
| want.
| dn3500 wrote:
| Meanwhile digitization of actual film is manipulated to
| make it look more like digital cinema, with the grain and
| scratches removed, interpolated to 60 fps with jitter and
| shake suppressed.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| Wouldn't you be able to get the same effect by applying some
| digital filter to the music? Same goes for warmer sound some
| people claim for analog amplifiers. I would think you should
| be able to tune your digital devices to produce the same
| sound.
| hcarvalhoalves wrote:
| In theory you could compress and add some flutter. [1]
|
| The problem is, you don't have access to the master - if
| you try to apply this filter _on top_ of a final mix
| destined for CD /digital, it won't sound the same as tape,
| and will deteriorate the signal even more. That's why some
| bands still release on cassete, you actually need to mix w/
| tape in mind.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZS34GN4UHpQ&ab_channel=
| MrAud...
| ayyy wrote:
| That's how lo-fi gets produced.
|
| This is one of the more popular tools for that job: https:/
| /www.xlnaudio.com/products/addictive_fx/effect/rc-20_...
| excitom wrote:
| Whenever I hear people talk about the superior sound quality of
| vinyl my response is "Yeah, there's nothing quite like the
| sound of a rock being dragged over bumpy plastic!"
| VMG wrote:
| I would slightly disagree with him about CDs: there are some
| annoying high-frequency noises from a typical CD drive motor.
|
| Higher-end ones probably have some buffering.
| rbanffy wrote:
| You can always mimic the sound you'd get from analog media
| using a CD the same way you can emulate a CRT using a modern
| HDR high-resolution display with fidelity well beyond our
| ability to differentiate them. With a high-end GPU we can do
| CRT emulation in real time.
| vanderZwan wrote:
| That's not what the person you're replying to is talking
| about though - they're stating that the _motor_ that spins
| the disc is causing interference in the signal.
|
| (I have a hard time imagining that it's worse than the
| electric motors used to drive vinyls or cassette tapes, but
| if it's there it's there I suppose)
| thinkingkong wrote:
| Also the inventor of the CD. I wonder what else he built that is
| sitting in a stack of papers somewhere.
| rob74 wrote:
| Not to underestimate Mr. Ottens' contribution, but as the
| article notes, he was the "head of product development at the
| Belgian Hasselt branch of the Eindhoven company Philips" - so I
| guess he didn't single-handedly invent both the Compact
| Cassette (as it was called initially) and the Compact Disc, I
| think it was more of a group effort under his leadership...
| clydethefrog wrote:
| Yes, it's a bit like a Steve Jobs situation.
|
| In a Dutch eulogy I read yesterday it has the anecdote of him
| showing a wooden block that would fit in the inside pocket of
| his jacket and decided for the team: this is how small the
| music cassette should be. He also quickly negotiated with
| Sony when they started to copy the design to make Philips'
| design the universal standard.
|
| Edit: Found this quote in Cassette: A Documentary Mixtape
| (2016): "You can credit me with a few ideas. But the
| designers developed the device. I haven't done anything
| special. "
| aksss wrote:
| But did he walk around the office eating pretentious fruit?
|
| https://youtu.be/E3s-qZsjK8I
| Triv888 wrote:
| The leader gets more credits because he often gives
| direction.
| lordnacho wrote:
| It's normal to credit leaders with the team's effort though.
| Just about anything is a team effort, but credited to the
| leader, at least for public announcements.
| mmmBacon wrote:
| I thank Lou for his contributions. Cassette mixtapes were a huge
| part of teen life in the 80s.
|
| I fondly remember the mix tape. Exchanging mix tapes was a huge
| part of both my friendships and romantic interests. Spent many
| hours creating them as well as my own jacket art (while the tapes
| were recording).
| drawkbox wrote:
| Now the mixtape is a playlist. The art and writing the list is
| missing though, might be a product there.
| macksd wrote:
| I hope we all appreciate the "hackability" of cassette tapes.
| Even as a young kid I was able to use the family Hi-Fi to record
| my own cassettes where I could mix together sounds from a
| microphone, vinyl, CDs, the radio, etc. Literally any signal I
| could send through the stereo jack. I often think of one of my
| first programming books detailing how to save your BASIC programs
| to a cassette tape - though our family computer had no such
| attachment.
|
| I don't have quite the same memories from my later days of MP3s
| and ripping / burning CDs.
|
| edit: I've noticed hexagonal pencils seem to be less common than
| circular ones now, and I can't help but feel it's because they
| just aren't as useful anymore.
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I do have the same memories from digital times. Got the same
| pleasure on my computer. Reason, soundforge, dance ejay etc
|
| Love the cassette though. Still use it to apply warmth to audio
| to mix back in with my digital productions.
| macksd wrote:
| I suppose my family was equipped ahead of it's time in 1990.
| By 2000 I think we had perhaps fallen behind :)
| rorykoehler wrote:
| My Dad was a consumer audio technology enthusiast at the
| time so we always had the latest (CD then minidisc). There
| was a weird doldrums period between the release of the CD
| and Napster (iPod even) for creating and sharing music and
| mixtapes. It seemed that we would be stuck in a perpetual
| 5-10 year new technology release cycle. Cassette tape
| remained the best way to share music as CD burners were not
| readily available and hardly anyone used minidisc.
| DocTomoe wrote:
| Not to forget: copying anything to minidisc was slow(!)
|
| In the end, the final nail in the coffin of more
| mechanical storage of audio was rights protection and
| management, which is what killed R-DAT.
| throwanem wrote:
| Analog copying, those were the days. Specifically, the
| days of not being able to use my computer _or_ my
| minidisc player for a solid hour, lest stray noises from
| apps or excess CPU usage goof up the audio going from one
| to the other. And then there was the separate joy of
| twiddling the little wired remote to title the newly
| written tracks...
|
| NetMD solved this, allowing for digital copying and
| titling via USB, but it came along so late (2001) as to
| make no meaningful difference - especially in the face of
| the iPod, which had its advent in the same year.
| munificent wrote:
| Another kind of hackability: There is a whole little music
| genre called "tape loops" where people make music by cutting
| open cassettes and taping the ends of the tape to make infinite
| loops. You record onto a few of those of different lengths,
| play them back in parallel and get neat rhythmic effects as the
| loops go in and out of phase with each other.
|
| AMULETS is a good example of a musician making songs like this:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVon_9VmMEc
|
| The r/tapeloops subreddit is a nice little community for it.
| yread wrote:
| It was even more fun to do digitally on a minidisc. Editing
| sound on a box 5x5cm
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Yeah, the main shift from cassettes to copying CD's to
| downloading MP3's to where I am now, Spotify, has been one of
| quantity.
|
| I had a few tapes, often re-recording over them with whatever
| CD my brother bought (he paid money for them, the fool!). Later
| on I had a stack of burned CDs that I accumulated over the
| years, once again mostly copied from my brother; during my
| paper rounds I would flip between the handful of CD's I had.
|
| Then I got an iPod Mini and permanent internet, and my daily
| listening habits broadened a bit.
|
| And I listen to the most and broadest range of music ever
| thanks to Spotify. Mind you, its algorithms do tend to steer me
| to the same things regularly. At least when I had all of my
| music in itunes I would know what I had and liked better.
| macksd wrote:
| Oh for sure. I'm don't think I'd want to give up today
| situation. The ability to discover new music, get so much of
| it on demand, podcasts, etc. Just wonderful. I suppose I just
| appreciate, as a hacker, the very flexible abstraction of
| being able to take anything through the stereo cord, and
| record it with the play, pause, rewind, and record buttons. I
| was able to do so much as a 7-year-old. It seemed more
| complicated to learn digital sound editing software, CDs
| weren't always so rewritable, etc.
| bjarneh wrote:
| > But some people call it "warm audio."
|
| This just reminded me of that comic strip with the hipster
| collecting vinyl, being asked why. It was the
| high price + the inconvenience that attracted me
|
| Cover-art is obviously cooler; since it's bigger. But other than
| that vinyl is such a strange "fashion".
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26410982.
| [deleted]
| HideousKojima wrote:
| One advantage vinyl has is that it is often mastered better.
| Music mastered for CDs often has a much lower dynamic range
| because otherwise it would be impossible to listen to over the
| sound of the road etc. in a car.
|
| The obvious answer for this is to release a different mastering
| in a digital format, but that's not cool and hipstery enough so
| instead vinyl made a comeback.
| mattr47 wrote:
| What about when CD first came out?
|
| Players were first made for the home, and while the first CD
| player for automobiles was introduced in 1984, it was not
| until mid to late 90s that they became mainstream.
| bjarneh wrote:
| > but that's not cool and hipstery enough
|
| That can be a problem sometimes :-)
| ra wrote:
| Yes - it's not the format, and certainly not about audio
| fidelity.
|
| Vinyl represents the analog that CDs replaced... it
| represents a tactical, physical romantic "thing" that has
| since been superseded.
| timw4mail wrote:
| Ironic, too, given CDs have a larger dynamic range than
| records.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Hence the "Turn me up!" campaign, though it's hard to say
| how much of a difference it has made.
| mosselman wrote:
| > otherwise it would be impossible to listen to over the
| sound of the road etc. in a car.
|
| Do you have a source for the claim that CDs are mixed with
| audibility in cars as a priority? Because, to be honest, it
| sounds like bullshit, but I'd like to be proven wrong.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| I have an in-law who has a Pro Tools setup and does
| professional mastering, and they absolutely have filters
| for "what this will sound like in a 2003 Corolla with the
| stock sound." I don't know how much that kind of thing
| shapes the actual decision making process, but it's
| absolutely considered (and it's almost certainly considered
| all the more for FM/satellite radio broadcasts where in-car
| listening is expected to be the bulk of the audience).
|
| Also relevant is Lars Ulrich's famous quote defending the
| disastrous state of _Death Magnetic_ , exposed in part
| because of how much better the tracks sounded in their
| Guitar Hero versions:
|
| "Listen, there's nothing up with the audio quality. It's
| 2008, and that's how we make records. [Producer] Rick
| Rubin's whole thing is to try and get it to sound lively,
| to get it to sound loud, to get it to sound exciting, to
| get it to jump out of the speakers. Of course, I've heard
| that there are a few people complaining. But I've been
| listening to it the last couple of days in my car, and it
| sounds fuckin' smokin'."
| kasabali wrote:
| search for "loudness war"
| fyolnish wrote:
| The loudness war was not about making music audible over
| road noise
| kasabali wrote:
| I didn't say it was for "road noise". Car stereos was one
| of the popular places for listening CDs at the height of
| loudness war.
|
| > So the recording and mastering engineers began to
| produce recordings with limited dynamic range that would
| sound "better" on iPods and car stereos that are used in
| areas with more ambient noise than a quiet listening
| room. [1]
|
| > Today, many people listen to music primarily in the car
| or other noisy places, where louder music cuts through
| against the background noise. Record companies,
| especially today, tend to cater to this market of casual,
| "on-the-go" listeners and make heavy use of compression
| and limiting in order to make their album louder. [2]
|
| [1]
| https://sites.google.com/site/dbremaster/home/-loudness-
| war-...
|
| [2] https://www.grin.com/document/206816
| InitialLastName wrote:
| The loudness war was more about mastering for radio; in a
| world where all listeners are fleeting, you do everything
| you can to keep them, including making the music as loud
| as you can fit in your channel.
| abhinav22 wrote:
| That's unrelated to vinyl vs cds
| danhor wrote:
| Not for the reason GP mentioned, but you can increase the
| loudness much more on CDs than on vinyl, since on vinyl
| the needle physically jumps out if the loudness is
| constantly high, so it needs to be mastered with more
| dynamic range. There is also the thing that the high
| bitrate/high sampling rate masterings sound much better
| in that regard, since they target a different audience
| kasabali wrote:
| Sure, if you deliberately refuse to interpret the
| context.
|
| Vinyl releases have a different target market and are
| mastered with more fidelity in mind, while CD releases
| are mainstream, and have been mastered with small dynamic
| range for decades because of the loudness war.
|
| I'm surprised I had to spell this out explicitly.
|
| https://www.yoursoundmatters.com/vinyl-vs-cd-in-the-
| loudness...
| ericwood wrote:
| Listening back to mixes over a car stereo system is a
| pretty common practice, but that's more for making sure a
| mix translates to common listening scenarios and less to do
| with road noise.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Sounds like OP was describing _compression_. And there has
| been a trend toward dialing up the compression -- but I
| thought it was to make the tracks "louder", stand out. I
| had not heard any car connection.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > But other than that vinyl is such a strange "fashion".
|
| The problem is that a lot of music that was originally recorded
| on vinyl was either never remastered for modern audio
| equipment, or else has been remastered in a way that makes it
| even worse than the original version. E.g. a lot of the early
| Beatles stuff is pretty painful to listen to using even just
| basic earbuds, and I can only imagine that it would be even
| worse using good headphones.
|
| And I say this as someone who isn't an audiophile, owns no
| vinyl, and isn't even especially into music.
| [deleted]
| klingon78 wrote:
| Cassettes have good bass and midrange. Vinyl is great and more
| defined. CDs have too much treble and anything digital can't
| really produce the same waveforms exactly.
| sramsay wrote:
| Saying "CDs have too much treble" is like saying "books have
| too many adjectives."
|
| And no, for millionth time. Per the Nyquist theorem, the
| waveform being generated is _identical_ -- the same, without
| any difference whatsoever -- when the sample rate is twice
| the frequency being reproduced. Which it is, because the
| sample rate of a CD is more than twice the theoretical upper
| range of human hearing.
|
| You can talk about aliasing if you like. I see some people in
| the thread with super-human hearing can detect the buzz of CD
| drive motors. But this "digital is not as good because it's
| discrete and audio is continuous" is complete nonsense.
|
| If you are thinking that the "digital waveforms" (?) coming
| out of your speakers don't sound as good because they're not
| continuous, or "choppy," or missing information . . . you're
| really not making any sense at all.
| dang wrote:
| Please omit swipes like "for millionth time" and "you're
| really not making any sense at all" from comments here,
| regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| klingon78 wrote:
| See: Analog vs Digital[1].
|
| I said there were differences. A lot of people putting
| words into my mouth.
|
| I was actually alive and aware listening to pre-1980s
| vinyls, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, etc. unlike some of you.
| CDs added additional frequencies into the high range, which
| people thought sounded crisp and new, but it never had the
| warmth of cassettes and vinyl.
|
| The waveform thing is true but I never said that it was the
| reason for the difference in warmth.
|
| [1]- https://innersense-inc.com/analog-versus-digital/
| ratww wrote:
| _> CDs added additional frequencies into the high range_
|
| CDs didn't add anything. The treble was always there, or
| was added in mixing/mastering for creative reasons. Vinyl
| and Cassete simply didn't or couldn't reproduce those
| frequencies.
|
| You could, of course, remove the frequencies on CD to
| match Vinyl or Cassette, but they were kept (or even
| added) in CD for artistic reasons.
| sramsay wrote:
| Right. I was actually alive too. What we're trying to
| tell you, is that the kind of explanation offered in that
| article is absolute bullshit. It's common! People make
| this kind of argument all the time. It's still wrong, for
| the reasons eloquently outlined in the replies.
|
| I think the thing that trips people up is that they think
| that a digital _process_ can somehow fail to make
| something happen _to an analogue speaker cone_ that an
| analog process can do effortlessly _because of the nature
| of the process_ (or the medium). It 's not true.
|
| Do you like vinyl better? Or CDs better? Or reel-to-reel
| tape? You'll get no argument from me, because "better" is
| a pretty subjective thing. But the following propositions
| are absurd:
|
| 1. Vinyl has "higher fidelity" than CDs. 2. CDs "add
| treble" to recordings. 3. Digital processes can never
| accurately reproduce analog phenomena. 4. Analog "warmth"
| is only achievable with analog equipment. 5. No one ever
| over-compressed their tracks until CDs (or Pro Tools, or
| DAT tapes, or whatever) came along, and so these things
| are to blame.
|
| I could go on.
|
| I'm not accusing you of having said all of these things;
| they're just examples of things are absolutely not true,
| but which get said all the time, and which start to seem
| like truth because everyone is nodding.
| NobodyNada wrote:
| > CDs added additional frequencies into the high range,
| which people thought sounded crisp and new, but it never
| had the warmth of cassettes and vinyl.
|
| Sure, there _is_ an audible difference between digital
| audio and vintage analog equipment -- but it has nothing
| to do with quality problems in digital audio. In fact,
| it's exactly the opposite: vinyl and cassettes deliver
| low-quality, heavily distorted audio (with a dynamic
| range equivalent to that of 5 or 6 bit digital audio).
| This does create a distinctive "warm" tone, and a lot of
| people really like the sound (or the nostalgia) created
| by this distortion.
|
| The article you linked does _not_ demonstrate quality
| problems with digital audio; it is a bunch of nonsense
| intended to sell a product.
|
| First of all, it compares a "digital square wave" with an
| "analog sine wave", and remarks that "the digital signal
| does not follow the smooth flow of its analog
| compliment." Of course they look different, they're not
| the same wave! A square wave is "supposed" to look
| blocky, it's not a digital vs. analog thing.
|
| At least it _mentions_ the Shannon-Nyquist theorem and
| gets one thing right: "there is no difference whatsoever
| between an analog sine wave and a digital one"
|
| But then it totally blows it again with its comparison of
| a "digital" square wave to a "natural" one, observing
| that the "natural" square wave is more curved.
|
| Again, this is nonsense because you're not comparing the
| same wave! The "digital" image is of an ideal,
| mathematically pure square wave, whereas the "natural"
| image is bandlimited. The first mathematically pure wave
| cannot exist in the real world, because it would require
| infinite bandwidth -- the voltage would have to change
| instantly.
|
| In fact, a digital signal _is_ bandlimited; it's just a
| bad illustration. The digital square wave, when converted
| to analog, will not include any frequencies above half
| the sampling rate, making it match whatever our
| bandlimited analog signal is supposed to look like.
|
| Then the article goes into full-on snake oil mode, trying
| to convince you that "technology that resolves that
| problem, by creating infinite phase, is currently
| available" if only you buy their "Sensorium(tm) LSV III
| Function Generators and Altitudinal Oscillators [that]
| utilize a polynomial transition region algorithm". This
| is very much nonsense; by the Nyquist-Shannon sampling
| theorem, you can reproduce a bandlimited waveform
| _exactly_ from a sampled signal, no matter how "complex"
| your waveform is.
|
| For a more detailed overview about how and why digital
| audio works, I recommend this video:
| https://xiph.org/video/vid2.shtml
| sramsay wrote:
| > Then the article goes into full-on snake oil mode,
| trying to convince you that "technology that resolves
| that problem, by creating infinite phase, is currently
| available" if only you buy their "Sensorium(tm) LSV III
| Function Generators and Altitudinal Oscillators [that]
| utilize a polynomial transition region algorithm".
|
| Definitely my favorite part. It's complete gibberish, but
| because it uses audio nerd words (phase, oscillator,
| function generator) it sounds like it might not be.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Even just getting a decent DAC can make a lot of
| difference. There's a difference between playing a CD on a
| decent setup or a cheap portable player with 5$ headphones,
| shitty cheap DAC and sloppy electronics. With the right
| software, you can even emulate a lot of distortion and
| warmth of analog equipment even. Some more expensive
| consumer grade hardware (Bose is a good example) takes a
| lot of liberty with processing the sound that gets send to
| the speakers.
|
| It's basically the same as iphone owners claiming their
| cameras are better because they get such nice crisp
| colorful photos. Which depends on roughly the same kind of
| lossy algorithms that electronics manufacturers use to make
| cheap hardware sound awesome. Compress, filter, boost, etc.
| It's a lossy process. It's intentionally losing recorded
| detail for the effect. The audio equivalent would be the
| wall of sound type sound associated with 1980s pop music.
| Sounds great on a cheap brand walkman ripoff (went through
| several in the 80s).
|
| CD recordings have historically been optimized for cheap
| equipment and FM radio. The storage medium is not the
| problem: the sound is intentionally compromised when the
| master is created already. That's why remastered recordings
| are a big deal these days and also why a lot of LPs sound
| better (different master, generally better equipment used
| for playback). Same recording, but a better masters
| optimized for different purposes. One sounds better than
| the other but people get confused about why that is.
| wheels wrote:
| > _the wall of sound type sound associated with 1980s pop
| music_
|
| "Wall of Sound" recordings are primarily from the 1960s.
| "Pet Sounds" by The Beach Boys is the quintessential
| recording in the style.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_of_Sound
| hluska wrote:
| Pure analogue recording studios are in the minority and by
| the time you expand your search to pressing plants, the vast
| majority of vinyl has been digital before it hits our ears.
|
| (I belong to the vinyl cult too and badly want to believe
| what you're saying.)
| klingon78 wrote:
| What I said was true. Whether it was digital or not can be
| a subtle difference.
|
| I never said that vinyl is only analog or that that is the
| reason for the difference in sound between vinyl and other
| formats, because it's not.
|
| The "warmth" is cassettes and more so with better balance
| in vinyl is known. Digital didn't kill music quality; it
| did affect waveforms, but that's not the reason for vinyl
| sounding better to most.
|
| Of course, there are many more reasons that music sounds
| better or worse.
| hluska wrote:
| I wonder if we're really getting into mechanical
| differences between turntables? It's hard to talk in
| terms of sound but you sound like a lot of fun. If you're
| ever in or around Regina, Canada let me know. I have two
| Technics 1200s that I've modified heavily. If you'd like,
| I can show you some cool stuff with three tonearms (the
| stock 1200 tonearm, a straight tonearm that will tell you
| precisely when I went to raves and a tonearm that is
| engineered for better sound. You'll hear the difference
| right away. Then I can show you some differences between
| cartridges, proper cartridge alignment (a fraction of a
| degree makes a huge difference) and even styluses.
|
| One downside of the proliferation of turntables is that
| most don't work with shit. It's been happening since
| everyone was a DJ and is still happening now!!! :)
| bch wrote:
| Let Monty Montgomery of xiph.org provide an illuminating tear
| down of "digital can't really produce...":
| https://youtu.be/cIQ9IXSUzuM
|
| Edit: fix auto-incorrected xiph.org domain
| jankeymeulen wrote:
| Nyquist and Shannon disagree with you.
| vharuck wrote:
| I can understand it from a "wabi sabi" point of view, where the
| imperfections are part of the appeal.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi
| hluska wrote:
| (This is purely anecdata.)
|
| I love music so pay a lot of attention to stuff like speakers.
| One thing I notice is that when people get into vinyl, they get
| into the overall experience of listening to music. They spend a
| little more on speakers, align them with music in mind and
| start sitting down and listening to music. Digital is so easy
| that it's background noise when we're driving, working and
| living. Vinyl takes more work and in my experience, that work
| leads to an enhanced experience. It's not surprising people
| call it 'warm'.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Also anecdotal:
|
| After switching my entire collection over to CD, one of the
| bands I later got into, only as a "CD band" were The Muffs
| (R.I.P., Kim).
|
| Years later, seeing their albums that I loved so much
| released on vinyl, I thought, why not? The instant I put the
| needle down I knew there was magic in vinyl that I had traded
| for convenience years ago. It sounded that much better.
|
| The significance for me was that this was a band I knew
| digitally before I ever heard analog. Somehow, going that
| direction, and enjoying the vinyl better convinced me there
| was something there.
|
| Explain away. I am happy when I put on my records.
| roywiggins wrote:
| The usual explanation is that CDs during the early years of
| the format were badly mastered in the first place.
|
| So perhaps the LP you prefer was just remastered
| competently.
| hluska wrote:
| Ugh, Kim Shattuck. :( Fuck ALS.
|
| I belong to the vinyl cult too. Pre-Dirty Sonic Youth, pre-
| Warner REM and first English pressings of Factory Records
| music make me happy too.
|
| I don't think there's anything to explain. Music is a
| beautiful ritual. Some of us participate in the ritual and
| others like background noise.
| ratww wrote:
| Mastering on Vinyl is almost always less compressed, and
| sounds more natural due to natural limitations of the
| medium. This sounds especially better (IMO) when you turn
| up the volume.
|
| Of course, it's entirely possible to master like that on
| CD, MP3, etc but nobody does it.
| cammikebrown wrote:
| Exactly. I have so many late 70s/early 80s stuff made in
| the early days of digital that sound so gross on CD, and
| are just amazing on vinyl. I know the mastering could be
| done way better on CD, but especially with the loudness
| wars now it never does.
| ghaff wrote:
| For a lot of people (including myself), digital has
| essentially become radio. Most of the time I just listen to
| playlists of various sorts and, mostly, not even ones I've
| curated myself. I haven't done any meaningful rating and
| curating of my music lists in years.
| leokennis wrote:
| For those looking for the comic:
|
| https://i.imgur.com/Pt0Ze2s.jpg
| bjarneh wrote:
| Thanks; I didn't remember it correctly I see :-)
| slicktux wrote:
| Cringe worthy scenario is when someone plays vinyl for the
| "warm sound" but uses Bluetooth speakers...hence digitizing the
| sound with an ADC
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Oh, kids, I play through a tube amplifier I built myself,
| then full-range speakers (also built myself).
|
| (Sub is solid state - oof.)
| catblast01 wrote:
| Why? Bluetooth isn't perfect but it the fidelity is not so
| poor as to reverse the "warmth" of the analog distortion, and
| even a cheap ADC won't either... it should reproduce it
| pretty well.
|
| What people get wrapped up in cognitive dissonance is that
| they equate "pleasing" with hi fidelity... but anything
| likeable about vinyl is because it is low fidelity -- but if
| you tell certain people this they take it as a pretty
| personal attack. Anyway, a decent digital signal chain should
| reproduce this low fidelity pretty well including high
| bitrate SBC.
| slicktux wrote:
| I agree with your statement; to give my initial comment
| some context I was poking fun at the 'audiophiles' that
| prefer vinyl for its analog characteristics but then
| unknowingly digitize it by using, for example, a Bluetooth
| speaker... I'm in no way an audiophile and if I want
| quality sound than WAV or FLAC is fine...but that's just
| for certain albums ;)
| the_local_host wrote:
| I suspect that for people who like vinyl, the experience of
| music isn't just about the sound. Putting on a record, as a
| ceremony, just seems more appealing than menu-diving down to a
| playlist on your phone.
| cromka wrote:
| Agreed, and I'd say it is exactly the same phenomenon as when
| people prefer print books over e-readers.
| augusto-moura wrote:
| Yes, a similar converging discussion is physical vs digital
| media games, with enough time both storage and internet
| connections will reach a point where digital will be light
| years more practical than physical discs (or cartridges,
| anyone remember those?), but the feeling of having a hard
| copy and all the ceremonies involved about playing a game
| gives a so much richer experience for me. Is just like
| prepping popcorn and getting comfy for a movie session at
| home, you can always just play a movie at your laptop, but
| sometimes you just want to get 100% into it
| uberdru wrote:
| It's true. An LP defines a concrete slice of time, defined by
| decisions made by the artists and the producers. That work
| and craft is different from the playlist creator. Also, the
| management of a record collection takes attention and
| patience. A record collection itself is a type of identity
| repo, a lot like Walter Benjamin's library, e.g. I will argue
| that CD's cannot capture a certain plangent timbre, though
| I've never found any research to back that up (hard as I have
| tried).
| niea_11 wrote:
| An interview with him from 2013 :
| https://www.theregister.com/2013/09/02/compact_cassette_supr...
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| That's a great interview. You really get the sense he saw the
| engineering as a way to optimise the user experience. He wasn't
| just trying to put some tape in a tiny box for the sake of it.
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