jaw@ames-lm.UUCP (James A. Woods) (04/27/84)
# No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt
Just wondering what paranoid fools actually BUY things like:
(1) $5000 turntables to correct cheap media defects
(but brilliantly engineered to show off servo technology), or
(2) cassette decks that mechanically flip the media over
(so golden ears can hear > 15khz on side B of a cheap tape), or
(3) auto systems with DBX
(well, someone might have a van with an anechoic chamber in the back).
Such jokes, like metal tape, "monster" cable, $1000 cartridges for
your gem collection, second-harmonic distortion introducers for that
"tube" sound, and a host of other sponges for discretionary income,
never cease to amuse me. I thought digital would be the end of it,
but no, we have (amongst other sickening items)
(a) CD phase "correctors"
(b) second generation players which pass 900 vs. 800 microinch spots
(c) special CD "cleaning" fluid
There's high fidelity, and then there's point-of-diminishing-returns
fidelity. The truly ignorant suckers I feel for, more than the otherwise
intelligent (no, strike that) cognoscenti who won't even let the Nyquist
theorem get through their thick skulls, let alone believe that the hammer,
stirrup, and anvil just might be more nonlinear than most electronic circuitry.
I say, let "skullcrusher" von Bekesy at 'em!
-- James A. Woods {research,dual,hao,hplabs}!ames-lm!jaw
P.S.
But just give me a cheap digital jukebox, and I'll come running.