ON THE OTHER HANDS

We are about to plunge into an other era of "multi-media" audio for the consumer, a multiplicity of new products or systems that reminds me strongly of the early "hi-fi" era, the war of the three speeds--33, 45, 78--the battle between LP and 45 (it resolved itself--everybody made both kinds, for as long as the demand continued) and-can you remember?--the great war of the tape cartridges. You think the little Compact Cassette was the only contender? Far from it. We had a choice between 4-track cartridges, 8-track cartridges, cassettes and more, all aiming at the same and quite legitimate goal, to "automate" the clumsy reel-to-reel audio tape for consumer use.

Not only was there a bewildering choice of equipment for these systems, mostly incompatible type for type, but there were other issues for us to face the ability to record on the tape as well as play, for instance. Each version had its own answer to that one, which in the end was a lot more important than some manufacturers realized.

And then there was the simple matter of size and playing speed. In that unmemorable welter of "availabilities," the big 8-track, with its single roll of quarter-inch tape, looped so that as tape wound on the outside it was pulled out of the inside, was the most extraordinary. It was a perpetual wonder to find that this worked at all. Have you ever tried to unravel a ball of string by pulling out the inside end? Nobody is very good at guessing the winners in these big contests, least o' all the manufacturers and designers.

The public, as usual, swims in a sea of publicity almost impossible to penetrate. And yet, the public, in the end, still speaks and is heard.

I've always thought that the Philips people grossly underestimated the potential of their little Compact Cassette in its earliest mono format. The system was indeed strictly on the low-fi side to begin with, and quite honestly so. But there were built-in values in that sys tem that began to impress the public as soon as the first cassettes were on the market. The biggest value, o' course, was unparalleled small size, flexibility, convenience, a 50-50 ability either to play prerecorded material or to make recordings, a two-direction fast wind, and the turnover two-way recording system of reel-to-reel tape.

In comparison, the other cartridge tapes were clumsy monstrosities. What sustained the cassette victory was the engineering-the advanced tape technology--recording at the unheard-of speed of 1 7/8 ips on an incredibly tiny and thin ribbon, the ingenious reel-less hubs that allowed the two rolls inside to graze each other throughout and thus save space with no compromise in the winding, the neatly de signed windows that allowed a quick middle view of the two rolls as they turned, and, of course, the mechanical ingenuity that somehow kept the tiny tapes from mistracking, snarling, breaking--all the old and unpleasant attributes of home reel-to-reel recorder operation.

But most of all, I think the cassette survived because the specifications Philips set up ahead of time were ultra-careful and were rigidly enforced.

Thanks to them, the system survives to this day, with only minor modifications to the original conception, and has al lowed enormous advances in performance over the many intervening years.

Even stereo was no block for the cassette. Two tracks became four--on that tiny tape--but cleverly rearranged from the interleaved tracks of the reel to-reel four-track system so that each stereo signal occupied one-half of the tape; thus a mono tape was played by both stereo heads, compatibly. At the beginning, that was vital, though it's no longer important.

Most of us still can be astonished at the recording of four separate tracks on the little cassette tape, with a remarkably low level of crosstalk be tween them, and that almost entirely between the pairs of mixable stereo channels. How often do you hear any echoes of "side B" as you play "side A"? Rarely.

Out of the confusion of that long first period of multiple systems, the cassette and the LP emerged as standard.

Further improvements, for years, went into these already established areas, and one might say that peace and harmony reigned. Competition in playing/recording settled down within familiar parameters, and progress progressed very nicely.

You can see where I'm aiming. Today, again--a wild and bewildering flood of new systems for consumer use, to record sound, to bring recorded sound to the home, car, and maybe the bathtub and the flower garden. It's the digital age, and putting a mere four tracks on a little ribbon of tape is nothing. Now, in digital, you can lay down literally dozens of discrete recordings between and around the existing four tracks, leaving them intact and still playable. (Similarly for Dolby digital movie sound, placed somehow around the film sprocket holes--see Bert Whyte's account in "Behind the Scenes" in the February issue.) So once again we have a whole group of new systems for home-type or consumer audio recording, as usual not compatible with each other though variably compatible with existing equipment. The presence of video, around the edges of these systems, of visual information as well as audio, is a serious complication--if and when put into actual practice. The interactive movement adds still another area of immense possibility-and immense confusion as well. How do we go about getting a grasp on all these fascinating new media? I can tell you one thing. We will have to move away from that good old American tradition, bipolar thinking. Either-or. Yes or no. This or that. A two dimensional confrontation, and winner takes all even when the score is almost 50-50. It is an admirably decisive way of thinking, whether in politics, sports, or Oscar winning, and in a way it is unique to us in the United States. Other parts of the world think differently they are multi-polar. Most of the other democracies have multiple political parties, and progress is by coalition and compromise. We prefer a much quicker resolution and so almost al ways still stick to the two-party system, as well as we can. So it is in most areas of our life, including audio. Yet as anyone can see, the multi polar approach is eating its way into our thinking everywhere, perforce.

True, we haven't yet gotten to fielding three football teams on one field to fight it out, but in plenty of other respects we are shifting to a multi-polar stance as the only possible way to think in a world of utter complexity. So look at the new audio, and act like the multi-pole a.c. motor or alternator! I can suggest a pole or two to get things started.

Count 'em, three radical new recording systems, digital, to add to the already ancient CD. One, DAT, is on the market and defining its place; the others, DCC and MD, lavishly described, are about to be available. There are also assorted peripheral systems semi-attached to those we already know, such as the extended CD family of discs.

One pair of poles to consider is the little matter of read and write, as the computer people put it. Record and playback. Either a system is able to record or it isn't. A bit of Hamlet in that.

To be or not to be? Simple and utterly bipolar. But also quite wrong. In another past epic battle of systems, the video cartridge, a third pole was involved that determined the billion-buck out come of that particular war-the ability to copy. Sony's original videocassette system beat many others simply be cause it so obviously offered home copying of video as a primary feature, even if this was carefully clothed in fancy language. I remember the press demos. Unwisely, I thought that Sony's was the least enterprising among a variety of systems from an engineering viewpoint. Maybe Sony blundered into a bigger success than it had counted on-no matter. The public got the message: Video at home, by choice, prerecorded, but also home copied. The third pole. Too many audio designers overlooked it, to their enormous cost, including the CBS EVR system (Electronic Video Recording), which was strictly play-only. (As I see it, the sub sequent Beta versus VHS rivalry was largely a bipolar fight between relatively similar systems.) It was then that the first big flap over copyright material, taped or filmed, erupted with violence, effecting huge lawsuits and protracted argument-all thanks to this third pole. As anybody knows it was victory for Sony and for video copying. The principle also applied to the audio cassette, but this area came to a boil only when the DAT cassette appeared, offering literal clones of copyrighted material indistinguishable from master tapes. Dynamite! This problem is now ingeniously compromised via .the one-copy-only DAT system, and peace is restored. If you want the ultimate in cassette, you buy DAT, at a price.

On the other hand, a new consideration. The other new systems, soon to appear, make high-quality home-based copies like the older cassette, but these are not commercially (or illegally) usable clones. Instead, via remarkable compression or simplification they reduce the digital content of the signal by an astonishing amount and offer a great saving in space. To put it crudely, if a sound isn't there or is unlikely to be heard, it isn't recorded.

This unlikely compression of audio sense, taking advantage both of the ear's characteristics and that of the signal, particularly music, seems to work. Most accounts so far say listeners can't tell the difference. If so, for many of us this is an important factor.

An improvement, definitely, over the regular analog cassette, and yet not a clone. Good, safe ground, unlikely to stir up any new tempests.

Ah, but some of us, as is well known, will have only the best. That means, among the new systems, DAT. It is already widely used by professionals.

But the demanding audiophile isn't going to leave it to them, no matter the cost! Maybe one perfect clone is enough? I'd say so.

So gather up the poles, by the dozen, be careful about bipolar opposites that may not tell a fraction of the whole story, and have fun.

(by: EDWARD TATNALL CANBY; adapted from Audio magazine, Aug. 1992)

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