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Ever heard of the Sharper Image? Some years ago, we in audio were dithering about a thing we knew had to happen, the "marriage" of hi-fi and TV. Thinking on this, I borrowed the name of an estimable mail order house because it hit precisely what I had in mind: A sharper image.

We were rightly concerned, at that point, for our own high-tech reputation.

TV sound was dismal. Would our marriage partner ever accept a sharper, better audio for its millions of products? We did not like TV audio. And the TV image itself was only a little better.

There and then, before this doubtful marriage got started, I discovered another of my Canby Principles that immediately applied to this situation. To day, it is a supernova of a Principle, at the heart of immense change that may upset the whole American TV setup.

The Japanese are going to push us right into it--the sharper image! The Canby Laws, I admit, do not emerge out of long and painstaking research. They come to me straight from the blue. I just look around and see what's what, and out pops a Principle. The more research, the duller, I say. Boyle's Law! All about pressure.

Ohm's Law, mere high school algebra, if no less than the truth. May these rest where they belong: In the textbooks. I like my Principles more colorful, if less precise-like Murphy's Law, or the Peter Principle, or the resounding proclamations of Marshall McLuhan ("The medium is the message"). These exalted laws are the very stuff of my own lesser ones, exclusively published in this magazine. Oddly enough, they sometimes turn out to be quite significant in the long reach of time.

Let's put the Sharper Image in perspective among these Canby efforts.

My first-ever Law, as far as I can re member, was the Canby Constant, promulgated for Audio's 25th anniversary issue (May 1972) and reformulated, a month late, for our 40th (June 1987). It was all in the mind, this principle, though it might account for an audio generation gap: The apparent time from your earliest childhood memories to the present-any present-remains unchanged in length. This has nice mathematical complications (see the above back issues).

Then came a curious principle I stumbled on way back, while looking around me at what was what. This one is much more outward and very economic. It seems to have intrigued quite a few professional economists who hadn't looked at things this way, including a student at the Harvard Business School who wrote asking where I did my research and if it was in print.

Research? Just common sense, as I saw it. The principle was this: In the U.S. economy-including, of course, audio-there is room for 2 1/2 directly competing major systems in each area, but no more. In our wars of com petition, the others just fade away or bide their time. It is a kind of pairing, like two charioteers in ancient Greece. But very American.

Heavens no--never just one system! That would be monopoly. We do not like monopoly hereabouts. But two is okay, especially among economic giants. I call it biopoly. Today, we move rapidly toward a polyopoly, edged along by the rest of the big world. But for long years, long before I came along, we did practice this biopoly all over the place, according to the Second Canby Principle. I now revise this for greater accuracy: The Principle of Two-Plus, two competing systems with a few lesser ones around the edges (that's the "Plus"). This unique pattern has been everywhere in our American life. It has dominated us for centuries and has shaped our audio business from the very beginning. Astonishing when you begin to think about it.

The LP and the 45, for instance. Beta and VHS, with the videodisc hovering hopefully on the outskirts. The two great networks, NBC and CBS, with Mutual (and later ABC) hanging in there-the "Plus." How about Victor and Columbia, those early rivals from 78 days, with labels such as American Decca or Capitol strongly to one side? Victor and Columbia went right on, decade after decade, evolving into RCA Victor and CBS Records.

You understand that all this was fluid and changeable, being business in action. Like the swirls of oil and water stirred together, like the highs and lows that make our weather, nothing in this pattern is permanent. But somehow, with new forces coming in, the pattern always reemerges. When the early NBC network got too big, it was split ABC and NBC, right there together in the old Radio City precincts. (Unfortunately, at that time, the NBC anchor station was called WABC! It had to be changed: WNBC. So we had the usual--National and American, opposite numbers in American fashion. There seem to be more networks now, but if you ask me, two of them have usually dominated the top spots. The others are in my "Plus" area.

The rest of the world has never really gone this way. Briefly, perhaps, as with English Decca ( London) and EMI, two giants. More often it is straight monopoly, benevolent of course-Air France, British Rail. But the BBC has its commercial rivals and so does French national TV. This is not really our system, though; it is rivalry between government and "private" forces. We merely edge in that new direction, as with the P.O. This is a world pattern, not an American one, and we are borrowing it as we now borrow so much else in One World.

Biopoly! Look further at the Principle of Two-Plus. It goes far beyond audio and beyond economics: Democrats and Republicans-the two-party sys tem, "Plus." For every "National," there is an "American" to match, from banks to baseball leagues to airlines. Do you remember when American Express was an express company, hauling heavy stuff in wagons and trucks, and competing with Railway Express and smaller outfits on the side, like Adams Express? Two-Plus. You may not know that Western Union, Emperor of the telegram, had its major rival, too Postal Telegraph. It's the American Way. When I went home for college vacations, I would send a telegram (by phone), telling the folks in 10 words, or a 50-word Night Letter, the time of my arrival. I got so expert at writing 10-word masterpieces that often my family couldn't figure out what I was saying. I alternated between Western Union and Postal. You can probably think of a dozen more examples of this curious American habit of pairing. My Second Principle turned it into Law. Of a sort.

As a P.S., I remind you of a presently quaint leftover of the traditional American Two-Plus habit, now in an unlikely place: Japan. Those current giants in audio, JVC and Denon, were both founded far back in the early days of American influence in that country. To this moment, JVC is still the Japanese Victor, and Denon is officially Nippon Columbia. Need I say more? Back to the Sharper Image. The Third Canby Principle, governing the oncoming wedding between hi-fi and TV, stated (out of the blue) that in a two-element reproduced system, such as video or TV, one of the elements always dominates and this dominant element must have the sharper image.

Greater accuracy, more detail, more information-more bits. Where did this put high-quality audio? At the time I brought forth this principle, our conventional TV was still largely unchallenged--supreme as the big market, even with early VCR and cable and maybe proto satellite. The impact of improved quality, whether sound or sight, had not hit the general public with more than a tiny dent. People were still satisfied--more important, they were basically right. TV audio was marginal, but with the aid of the picture (real people, lips moving, expressive gestures, smiles), the audio was plenty intelligible and mostly speech, at that, which is minimally demanding.

As for the picture, it was fuzzy, with problems of many sorts in the reception, but it still was considerably better--when it worked--than the accompanying audio. Indeed, the picture could be beautiful, as it still is-even if fuzzy and lacking in detailed information. And so we had a good balance according to the Canby Principle. The picture obviously dominated. (Do we listen to television? No, we watch TV.) It did have the better quality, the greater information. The sound was vital for sense, but it went along for the ride. It was understandable. That was enough.

But in the industries, both video and audio, there was a lot more awareness of what could be done-already had been done, behind the scenes. As with the LP and the CD, we knew only too well how much was lacking in TV audio, but what if we improved it? Not good! The balance would be destroyed, the picture would be notice ably less sharp than the sound. That would disrupt.

Like painting one wall in your long-unpainted home. Age can quietly lend a patina of harmony to fading paint, if there is no competition, no obvious contrast. But paint one little segment in a bright new color, and you'll have to do the whole house. Rebuild the whole TV system to higher fi? No less will do.

So we were up against it, both in audio and video. This "marriage" was going to be complicated. And here was TV, stuck with an enormously ex pensive broadcast system implacably fixed to those inevitable broadcast "lines" that defined the ultimate possible sharpness for the airborne signal.

Well, you know what has happened.

We still have that broadcast system as of this fleeting moment. But we have undermined it right and left. Yes, marginal and useful improvements were abundantly possible and have been made, to everybody's pleasure. But in the end, the system itself has to go.

Like the LP, which was so wonderfully improved over the late years.

Meanwhile, non-broadcast video has forged right ahead, TV or no, and the public is ever more familiar with its superior picture and improved sound.

Good balance, again. The broadcast system, reaching its limits, is toppling on elderly legs. A new, much sharper TV is almost visibly getting closer. In deed, it exists! On Japanese air, of course. But the pressure for a new U.S.

TV system (and a sharper audio, in balance) is just that much more in tense. Sharper, sharper! Now it is a real need.

So you see, the Third Canby Principle--that in a dual-medium system, the dominant element must have the higher fi (the greater detail and information)-is absolutely entangled in pre sent developments. Audio must follow video. Video must lead in sharpness.

Now, at last, we will be able to strike a new balance without compromise.

When the perfect television picture finally arrives.

Don't forget that European TV has, for years, been a great deal closer to that perfect picture. On continental TV, you can already see not only the whites of their eyes but their individual eyelashes. And strands of hair. Leaves on distant trees instead of green smudges. Tiny people at a distance instead of blobs. Our own ultimate TV, when and if, will be even better. It will match any color transparency, and size. Sharp! Really sharp. And with good audio, right in balance.

That's it for now. We have to wait a bit for a few gigantic commercial upheavals costing billions before we see that picture. It might take years. But, barring national disaster, we'll have it.

And the audio to go with it.

(by: EDWARD TATNALL CANBY; adapted from Audio magazine, Apr. 1989)

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