by
Edward Tatnall Canby
If you remember the Collegium Whom from last month (a 21st century classical
resurrection of the well known WHO, courtesy of Canby), you will know where
I am going next. Straight into the immediate hypothetical future--the hypofuture--of
the classical disc. This month's hype has to do with the last days of the
LP during the Great Interim, now beginning, thanks to that phenomenon
of our time, the audiophile disc. It is one of two brave ways we are
facing up to the awesome potential of the still absent digital superdisc.
We may have a long wait for that. So the audiophile disc could have a long
future. But as I see it, it won't, and for quite other reasons. Too many
techno logical leaks.
The Great Interim is that period during which the shadow of digital disc technology, with all its incredible powers, hovers over us but does not descend. The LP is put in the shade, the densest, blackest shade you can imagine. The LP system is obviously very much out of date. Yet it is still our present operating standard and a splendidly useful one after so many years of refinement--and it remains our biggest base for continued hi-fi vi ability during the Great Interim. How long? Who can say? It's going to be a difficult period but the LP is still available and we can use it.
After all, the record and hi-fi business can't just stop and wait. Nor will audiophiles, music lovers, or hi-fi consumers stop and wait either, until they can toss out all their LP-related and/or analog-powered equipment in favor of digital-for-everything. Life goes on. So--the Great Interim begins but has no visible end.
Already there are ominous signs of fights to the digital death among the big world conglomerates who propose an all-digital audio disc, with their obdurately incompatible systems. There are further dangers in the omnivorous power of TV utilizing the same digital techniques. Maybe the Great Interim will extend forever? Could be! Even though in theory the digital disc seems, at last, to be the ideal way to exploit the already huge and formidable advantages of the disc as an information carrier, that is size and accessibility.
Who knows? By the time you read this, there just might be a sudden surprise disc right there in your local record emporium, some tiny digital thing with hours of playing time on each side, enormous dynamic range, incredible fidelity, no noise at all (well, hardly any), no wear, a shoebox player, and the whole costing pennies. What--the Great Interim over before it's begun? The new age upon us? I have my doubts. Especially about those pennies.
Let us face it, then. We are now into audiophile discs via the old but excel lent LP system; we are now into coded discs via the same, and if you think all these high-priced LP goodies are making a lot of noise in the market place, you are right. They are all we've got.
Do not worry--the LP still has potential. Improvements are honest and will continue to be real, not hooked up. If digital had never been imagined, we still could go onwards with LP for a good time. And so we will. We are not yet "dumping" obsolete material on a gullible public! Remember Walter P. Chrysler? Around 1923 or so he bought out the old Maxwell auto company and by some sort of drastic internal bracing managed to fix up and sell off a whole fleet of orphaned and very shaky Maxwells before launching his own fabulous new 1924 Chrysler. No, the audiophile disc is not an LP Maxwell.
Now I hate to say so, but I think the audiophile concept, even so, is ephemeral. As I say, it is leaky. By which I mean, its very sub stance will leak away to ever larger and larger record areas -- thanks to its success, until it is in effect just our current "regular" or first-line disc. Technology does update. The benefits spread out wards. The audiophile LP can keep plugging along two steps ahead, of course--if it can swing it. But there isn't that much headroom left and it isn't going to be easy.
Oh, so you think I'm barking up the wrong tree and it is tape in the form of the ever-improving cassette that will sustain our hi-fi software during the Great Interim? Including even a possible digital metal cassette? Well, maybe so, but I'm talking about disc. To put it differently, I must remind you that tape and disc have been successfully competing now for almost 30 years with immense benefits to both media, and neither one nor the other is about to win. That might be a disaster! The competition has driven the technicians on both sides to veritable tours de force of engineering in the effort to overcome the inherent weaknesses of both media. It's a happy marriage of foes, I say.
The LP came along in 1948 (with 16-inch discs, pre-tape, for its masters) and "pre-recorded" tape began to edge in a few years later--the great hope for progressive recording, destined to supersede the ancient disc medium (so they said). The coup de grace should have been that block buster from the tape people, stereo sound, the first time commercially, via two separate and discrete tracks on a single tape. Sensation! Expensive, to be sure (about the same per shot as our present audiophile discs) but inimitable. The obsolete disc, with a single groove, was stuck with mono sound.
But around 1957 the disc people for once agreed on something in a hurry. With a huff and a puff, the entire industry shifted overnight, almost, to the ingenious 45/45 stereo disc, with scarcely a peep from any rival arrangement. Amazing. So the LP was born again. And then tape appeared to be doomed--its stereo was too costly and too clumsy.
Ah yes. Nothing daunted, remember: Tape grabbed hold of an RCA idea, not two, but an incredible four racks on a single tape, two each way n stereo--a neat adaptation of the half-track system earlier introduced (mono) by Ampex. (The four tracks came out of an early RCA stereo cassette, much like ours but vastly bigger--it flopped). Lo, we had four-track reel-to-reel stereo at enormous savings and tape, once again, survived. Then there was high (ever-higher) speed duplication, not good for fi but an answer to a major tape weakness, inadaptability to mass production. And there was Dolby, to meet another problem, noise.
When a little widget called a cassette, with preposterously tiny tapes inside that crawled like a worm-tape worm, began to sprout hi-fi wings (to everyone's astonishment), the LP disc was again on the skids. Now, we said and still are saying, tape was on the winning stretch and gaining fast.
Well, the cassette, indeed, is still gaining in the same old race but the disc is running fast, and out ahead, though no two-year old As the cassette shows more and more of its true mettle (urgh!), RCA's big eight-legged monster (well, I couldn't say eight-track, could I?) still pounds along on all eight, er, limbs (I'll drop this metaphor mix before I crash) but first note those little horseys, and a few big ones off there on the sidelines, grooming up for a future race. Those horseys are all-digital horseys and, if I spy rightly, every one of them flies the disc colors. So, back to disc.
The audiophile disc is the nominal successor to the old and durable "demo" disc but it has already gone far beyond that category. A complex of numerous recent improvements in LP technology, this is a catch-all for elements, formerly separate but happily brought together under one heading for greater impact: Direct-to-disc, digital/analog, high tech (i.e. state-of-the art plus extra care) along with many specialized details, like half-speed cut ting and transformerless electronics, super vinyl, and again, much TLC, tender loving care. All that, plus the new engineering aesthetics of simplicity--fewer mikes, fewer everything (see last month's discussion of pop recording) for ever-greater sonic purity. All of these elements and more go variously into present audiophile discs, which sell at premium prices because they are indeed well ahead of most (but not all) "regular" LP offerings, particularly those that are mass produced by the big outfits.
More and better--a big order! But if the audiophile disc can keep ahead in a convincing way, it will continue to be favored by buyers with extra cash for guaranteed supersound. But can it keep ahead? That, as Shakespeare observed, is the rub. Never discount progress, it's a multi-edged sword. Ahead of what? OK, right now it is as above--but will the rest of the LP pack continue to oblige by remaining inferior? Not if it can be helped. Especially if the audiophiles sell in ever larger quantities--which means, alas, ever less and less TLC. Contradictons galore.
High-Tech Cylinders?
Those leaks. There is not much that is literally exclusive in audiophile technology--not even TLC, which can be summoned up by anybody, given enough reason. Anybody can try this audiophile game; anybody can attempt to match audiophile quality at "regular" prices. Or even at high prices but minus the deluxe business. And most noticeably of all, the BIG companies can jump into it whenever they are so moved. Impossible? Never underestimate the big company when it is up against a wall! (Most are, right this minute).
The idea of an extra-tech disc, sold at a premium price, is hardly new, though this is the first element in the audiophile's appeal to us. I can think of dozens of examples in past times, back into 78 days and much further--Thomas A. Edison tried it with his oversized cylinders. There was Emory Cook, beginning on 78s, and X, and Y and Z--the ones I am forgetting to mention. There was the Westminster Lab Series (especially processed from original masters) and Concert Hall Society's bright red 78 vinyl records in fancy red albums, then later, red LPs. (That company reversed engines and shifted to extra-low-priced LPs, with huge success, take that as a caveat). All of these and more played upon the theme of extra quality and limited, careful, methodical production. That is supposed to be the way our premium audiophile discs are made.
But is the concept getting out of bounds? They're selling too many. How can you produce "custom" records on a mass basis? Anyhow, how can a small company do it? Success is breeding contradiction.
It remains true that a small company can more easily produce quality products than a big outfit, where quality must filter down through a long chain of command and, too often, simply disappears. But what happens when success among the small companies elicits envy, or "notice" from the big? Suddenly the big people see the light and start ponderously to move in with all their superior heft. We are at that point right now. Columbia, for in stance, announced itself as being squarely in the audiophile disc business last June. I have not heard the Columbia records but my fingers are favorably crossed--big companies can indeed perform miracles when they absolutely have to.
What if the relatively mass-produced biggie Audiophiles turn out to be just as good as the careful, slow, TLC-type custom disc we already know? Definitely likely. With enormous resources, a big company can find undreamed-of ways to improve its technology, ways that are impractical for any small outfit. So here is a disastrous "leak" that could bleed the present audiophile disc firms to death.
There is still one more element in the audiophile disc that leads to paradox. These discs are offered, as the name implies, primarily to the audiophile--the listener who wants first of all the very best fi. Music is assumed to be a vehicle, here, for the advantageous exposition of sonic virtues. It's the "demo" disc again. Accordingly, we already have on audiophile records most of the old familiar demo items including the inevitable cannons of 1812. But demo repertoire has in the past been decidedly limited and the art of music has been pretty badly served for the most part. I groan when another demo turns up--if the music is good, it's a miracle.
But look, Ma, what's happening, no hands. Things have changed and the reason is simple. How many 1812 Overtures can you have in an expanding audiophile market? The old demo repertory has run short, and has had to expand. Miracle! Suddenly, all sorts of interesting music (from the musical viewpoint) is appearing on audiophile disc! A necessity, unless you want a couple of hundred 1812s on as many labels. So, willy-nilly, for very practical reasons, the audiophile disc is becoming a musical disc as well, in ever-widening variety. Another contradiction! The Schwann Record & Tape Guide has already integrated its audiophiles into the regular listings. A hint of the future? I would say so.
As you see, the audiophile concept, successful as it is, and because it is successful, is already leaking its very guts out all over the place. It will have to fight violently to keep ahead, as standard technology moves forward; it will lose heavily as "regular" lines of records get the idea and find ways to do the same things at maybe a bit less cost. The whole thing is like water in a sieve. How can it be otherwise? Even without the massive intervention of the big companies.
Too Much TLC
When the big companies move in, you small guys will just have to get out of the way, as always. And maybe wait awhile, until they (also as usual) begin once more to bog down in their own chains of command--then back you come! But by that time maybe the Great Interim will be over.
Oddly, though, I feel that perhaps the biggest threat to the whole audiophile disc concept comes inconspicuously from the very same type of small company that originated it. Don't think that abundant TLC, loving, careful, expensive production, goes only into high-priced specials! Human beings are fallible, engineers included. They often can't resist doing their utmost for perfection even when it doesn't pay. One of the heartening developments of the past decade or so has been the remarkable quality of sound that has come out of dozens of small record companies, even microscopic (one-disc) companies--thanks precisely to this very human aspiration plus, of course, the availability of superb professional audio equipment and processing. A few of the little labels are already into the audiophile category, to bring in a prestige dollar or two, but most, I expect, will just keep right on making excellent "standard" records at the regular price, what ever that may be, even if they lose their shirts. Human nature. A lot of these discs, I must say, are now and will be more often, indistinguishable from audiophile, further blurring the whole audiophile concept of some thing extra-special.
It's all extremely positive, in every aspect, and it could not happen with out success. We can be glad that the ancient LP is still so versatile after 32 years, under pressure of present circumstances--the approach of digital disc techniques. But if you ask me, one of these days the audiophile LP is just going to have to freeze its prices where they are and declare itself THE LP. A sort of coup d'etat. It will simply merge with the regular lines and then everybody can charge those higher prices. How lovely.
Until, that fatal day when the Great Interim suddenly is over and we have a new all-digital record system. I sup pose that it is bound to happen some day, because digital techniques are here. When digital arrives and a new disc system with it, the whole LP she bang will vanish into thin air, and not with a bang but a whimper, as T.S. Eliot once said.
It will be my whimper. I love the LP and have lived most of my audio life with it. I will hate to see it go.
(adapted from Audio magazine, Sept. 1980)
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