Recorded Music Delivery Formats Past & Present

Jan 1 18:58 UTC 1999

In this item, we hope to continue the discussion on formats of recordings for
music and other audio which caused drift in the Jeopardy item (Winter Agora
#12).  This includes commercial recordings past and present, more modern
digital techniques, etc.  Okay?  Okay, so let's start.

response 2 of 126:

Jan 1 20:26 UTC 1999

Thank you sindi.

The most recent Jeopardy clue was about a company and their much-maligned
music delivery system.  A number of people had responded to this clue (in the
form of a question, of course), but it was beginning to drift into a
discussion of 8-track, Muzak, digital audio tapes, etc.  Therefore, I offered
to enter an item (which you are reading right now) to continue discussion of
recorded music formats without confusing those who had been playing the game.

Any other questions?

response 4 of 126:

Jan 1 20:50 UTC 1999

        Ampex once came out with a 12" floopy audio delivery system.
Record-o flex or somehting like that.  Designed for radio stations
to compete with the use of cartridges, the floopies probably had 
half the cost of cartridges, but probably about one tenth the life
span.  I forget if the time available was as much as a long record,
like four minutes, for more in the range for announcements--two
minutes maximum.  Anybody ever spot one of these audio white elephants?

response 6 of 126:

Jan 1 21:19 UTC 1999

   Thats really bizare.  If you can spot a picture of one on the web,
I'd love to know about it.  I've never heard of this format before.
Were they akin to 8" floppies only bigger, something like that?

response 8 of 126:

Jan 2 01:17 UTC 1999

I was fond of the Elcasette, which basically stood for "Large Cassette;"
it was a large tape cassette, maybe twice or three times the size of the 
Phillips cassette we know and love.  Like the 8-track it was designed to 
run at a higher speed, but it eliminated the tape-loop constrution which
caused so much grief for the 8-track system.  It didn't fly in the 
market, of course, because the problems with Philips cassette were 
being dealt with.

response 10 of 126:

Jan 2 02:11 UTC 1999

  Neat list, David!

response 12 of 126:

Jan 2 06:34 UTC 1999

  I think your list omits the never-quite-made it "DCC" (or "Digital
  Compact Cassette" format, a digital tape format that fit into the
  same form-factor player as a traditional cassette (the idea being
  that you could build a player that was backwards compatible with
  existing cassettes.)  Its primary attraction, or lack thereof
  (depending on your perspective) was that its sound quality was 
  better than traditional cassette tape but not as good as DAT --
  for the latter reason the record companies were not as panic-stricken
  over it..

response 14 of 126:

Jan 2 15:06 UTC 1999

I think that the "answer" is linked to either the mini-CD or the digital
cassette. Weren't those Sony developments? ("Who is Sony?"). 

response 16 of 126:

Jan 2 16:59 UTC 1999

Re 3.  I hesitate to ask, but what is "come country" music?

response 18 of 126:

Jan 2 19:38 UTC 1999

re 12: Cool, I sat there and thought for a while about the tape formats
thinking I was missing something.

Regarding digital sound quality, the audiophile in me is hoping that
someone will use the new capacity of DVD to introduce a non-lossy
audio format using a higher sampling rate (say 88-132Khz) and 24 or 32
bit quantization.  Probably not likely too soon as the real market for
such recordings would be fairly small until the DVD transports become
commonplace.

At the least it would be interesting to compare such recordings with
current CD audio quality, which clears the "good enough" bar but not
by too terribly much.  Basically CDDA was introduced just as soon as
affordable technology could support passable sound and the format
itself has not advanced one bit from there.  Obviously the mastering
and playback hardware has gotten quite sophisticated, but mostly as a
reaction to the marginal quality of the format itself.

[How's that for bait... :]

response 20 of 126:

Jan 3 01:50 UTC 1999

My impression is that the top-flight human ear's limit is around 20-24
bits (depending on desired dynamic range) and 60KHz.  However, each 
piece of a long signal processing chain (like the one between the guy
singing to a mic in Studio 37B and someone listening to the final
product at home) may have to be built to a much more demanding spec
for the whole chain to perform at the sounds-perfect-to-humans level.

response 22 of 126:

Jan 3 04:29 UTC 1999

Diamond Rio fits in your pocket and plays mp3s

response 24 of 126:

Jan 3 07:10 UTC 1999

Not to be confused with a Diamond Reo, which they don't make any more, and
would never have fit in your pocket!  :-)