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Digital Generation, Analog Retro Chic
securitas writes "The New York Times' Juliet Chung writes about the latest technology trend: the growing popularity of analog technology with a generation that has grown up digital. 'Yesterday's technology designs are becoming popular among those in their teens and 20's eager to usher back a time they experienced only barely, if at all.' An MIT graduate student interviewed for the article, Ali Rahimi, was tired of the 'impersonal, unthinking' nature of modern technology, so he hacked an old telephone handset together with his mobile phone with the rationale, 'The handset has been going through about a hundred years of evolution in design and ... have the perfect shape.' According to Brown University technology historian Steven Lubar, 'When the available technology converges at a certain performance threshold ... consumers begin to base their choices on nontechnical considerations'. Chung also includes a sidebar that lists some of the new retro analog devices and interpretations, ranging from radio PC case mods to ancient clunker cell phones. Any other cool or interesting retro analog devices or hacks out there?" I've personally enjoyed owning tube amps on and off - the sound warmth, whether it be psychological or real, is definitely different then solid state amps.
Anyone else reminded of the Futurama episodes where Bender rebelled against technology ? And de-upgraded himself to wood ? I know you are. I really want one of those RX-1000 robot workers.
everyone i klnow wears an anolg watch.
now if i only someone would release Doom 3 for my fluid-dynamics-based analog computer.
lysergically yours
fact it, if you only know analog, your career as an EE is numbered. I fired my last analog EE last week - the guy was stark raving mad, mumbling about some type of sea-moss. Those analog only guys belong in an old folks home
People want something different, not something better. The handset of an old analog phone is by no means better or more ergonomic than a good cellphone, but it looks odd and you can't buy it, so it sets its owner apart.
And all of the ones I've built in the past 5 years have no cases - the tubes are exposed so you can see them. Real retro. Real power (400W/Ch). Real sound. Even makes 128kbps MP3s sound good!
Kenny P.
Visualize Whirled P.'s
It's all psychological. Or settings. I've heard a few people say they didn't care for their CD systems' sound. Turns out, they aren't using their equalizers for anything.
Turn up the bass, and poof, sounds warmer.
Certainly there has been a resurgence of old lately, but you will find this trend among any time where there has been a mass revolution in the way things are. For instance, the whole arts and crafts (Gustav Stickly, Morris, Green and Green, etc....etc...etc...) movement which in some part was a reaction or rebelling against the industrial movement of the early 19th century and celebrated the individual craftsman, designer and artist.
Right now we certainly have a rebellion against the "digital world" in many senses with a resurgence of what is warm and old including the use of tubes in stereo equipment and musical instruments to growing popularity of "old phone styles", to automobile designs borrowed from older elements and Hollywood has been borrowing every theme and idea from movies in the past for many of its current releases in an effort to come up with something successful.
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it's really hard to believe that old trends are coming back! It's never ever been fashionable to wear/use items that existed before you could remember them.
No one wore bell bottoms before the late 1990s. No one wore sweat shirts cut strange so they would hang off one shoulder before 2004. No one wore Daisy Duke cutoffs before 2002!
Sadly, in this day and age everything that comes back into style isn't original. It's made by companies that are out looking to make a buck. So yeah, it's going to start out that trendsetters will make their own stuff for free but companies will pick up on it and resell "retro stuff" for the same amount as it costs to have something "modern".
Bah.
In a lot of cases, analog is better.
There are reel-to-reel tape recorders from the 60s that still sound better than a CD. And the best digital cameras are lightyears from the best optical ones.
Besides that, there's the matter of how the signals behave when being degraded, which is the best thing about analog.
Take analog TV.. You can have a ridiculously weak signal, and still have something watchable. The static manifests itself as white fuzz, but you can still see the image and hear the voices. I know because I watched plenty of New York TV when I lived in Toronto.
A digital signal just cuts out. You either recieve it or you dont. It's either stuttery sound, blocky movement or gone altogether.
I've had rabbit ears and DirecTV. I'll tell you, if there was some sort of catastrophic weather thing going on (tornados or hurricanes or typhoons, whatver), I know I'd have my rabbit ears hooked up to get my updates.
Same goes for radio. How well would XM come in when the skies pitch black from tornados?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I remember a section of the story from William Gibson's "Idoru" where one of the main characters has a retro styled computer made by "Harley Davidson". Ever since reading that book I have been waiting for a company to start designing electronics that doesn't look like another piece of hardware. Considering how much I use my MP3 player and digital camera, you would think more companies would have a range of styles. Basically I want "retro styling" to be a step towards be getting my mp3 player to look like my watch.
That's why I've resurrected my old ENIAC to play Doom 3.
http://www.rustyrazorblade.com
I was wondering this the other day when I read some random posting on the internet about a guy who cleaned out a 1930's era RCA radio and crammed a miniITX board inside. What happened to the radio? He threw it in the trash.
This worries me because that radio was created during a time when Analog sets were state-of-the-art and cost upwards of hundreds of dollars. The PC components he placed inside that wooden case probably cost the same, but will be obsolete in a few years due to the speed at which we are updating technology these days. The radio however, was probably in use for well over 20+ years until a tube burned out and the previous owner could no longer get a replacement.
20+ years Vs. 2-3 years. I prefer keeping vintage electronics whole and in one piece. There are tons of resources out there for people who would love to get their hands on old sets and get them working again. The PC in an RCA case will probably be forgotten and discarded not soon after it's internals are considered yesterdays news. Much like it was decades ago, only that much sooner.
There is no spork.
i strongly suspect this all goes back to the comfort things that people are seeking in our post 9-11 world.
I'm fed up of the phrase "post 9/11" being used to explain changes in fashion and taste. Frankly, it would be easy to 'explain' most trends in this way, and I believe it's impact in this area has been grossly overstated.
Fact is, digital watches have not been "cool" since sometime in the 1980s, and they are now coming back into fashion, this time as *retro*.
I don't accept that *this* is down to 9-11; it is more likely to be another retro trend. The early 80s were a *long* time ago now; too long ago to be passe' any more, so let's revive it, goes the reasoning.
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After my grandmother died, the only thing I wanted to inherit was her old standard-issue GPO rotary-dial telephone. My grandparent's house was built at the tail end of the 1960s, and the phone was installed new in that house. My grandmother died at the tail end of last year. Since I want to keep it original (it's a reminder of my grandparents every time I use it) I haven't even changed the little paper disc in the dial that has their phone number and the usual 'Emergency: Fire, Police, Ambulance: 999' bit at the top.
The phone is one of these and anyone who grew up in Britain in the 1970s and 1980s will remember them (and there's still quite a few around that have never been changed out for modern phones).
They are pretty much indestructable, having an electromechanical ringer and solidly-made mechanical parts (including the clockwork dial mechanism with generates the LD pulses). So as I didn't even have to change the wire that goes from the telephone to my modern RJ-45 jack - originally I had planned to just crimp on an RJ-45 plug to the cable - I managed to obtain an old GPO junction box from the same era. You just need to screw down the little connectors on the end of the telephone cable into one end, then crimp on some of those little fork-connectors to the free end of a piece of Cat5 with an RJ-45 at the other end, which you then screw down into the original junction box - then plug into the socket.
I'd also like an Ericofon, but I don't think without soldering resistors to the ringers of the phones to increase the impedance, the ringer current just won't make two phones with a real bell ring at the same time...and I don't want to modify the phones.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
Reminds me of an old joke.
Audiophile (n): A person who listens to the equipment rather than the music.
Try getting a simple watch and ditching the cellular phone.. you'll find that much more liberating.
Aopen released a hybrid tube audio-based motherboard back in... 2002? Perhaps it was 2001 even... My analog brain seems to have problems with old, non-important dates.
Also, it's worth pointing out that for most musicians, particularly guitarists, tube technology has never gone away. It may have gotten a little more scarce in the consumer world, but musicians have long known that tubes offer an element that while perceptive, often enhances any sound, digital, or analog-based.
It's also worth pointing out that many companies are now emulating tube sounds. For example, I sold my old Marshall stack a long time ago, and moved to an Line6 AX2 tube-modelling amp. It's very impressive, and allows me to achieve many natural sounding tones, without requiring multiple amps, or annual tube replacements.
T-Racks is a notable piece of software which can do wonders to your music tracks. Many of its functions are designed to emulate tube-based equipment.
So while it's nice to see that more people are re-discovering the magic of analog equipment, it's not like it's ever gone away.
Actually, solid-state does not equivocate to "digital"
;-)
*Sigh* I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but one of my pet peeves is people using 'bigger' words than necessary to sound more sophisticated... especially when it's the wrong word:
equivocate
Main Entry: equivocate
Function: intransitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -cated; -cating
1 : to use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive
2 : to avoid committing oneself in what one says
synonym: see LIE
Next time try:
'Actually, solid-state is not the same as "digital"'
or
'Actually, solid-state does not necessarily mean "digital"
or
'Actually, solid-state doesn't have to mean (or be) "digital"'
Your remark about politicians is ironic considering you seem to be trying to sound like one
-chris
San Francisco values: compassion, tolerance, respect, intelligence
I just recently bought a used Fender Twin Reverb II amp...all tube. The guitar tone is just fantastic. My home amp is a little, very price friendly, amp I got off the web. I got the SE84C and have been VERY happy with it. But, you gotta have extremely efficient speakers...I have Klipschorns which are pretty retro too...as that the design of these hasn't really changed since about 1940.
Also pretty cool...are the nixie clocks I've seen around...just trying to find one that is reasonably priced...and not made with tubes that are rapidly becoming unavailable.
But, if nothing else....electronics that 'glow' are cool...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
If you want to experience some amazing sound without the inconvenience of paying $100 for rare vinyl and only being able to play it a handful of times before it starts to wear down, there are some pretty simple things you can do. You also don't need to spend thousands of dollars on hardware to get something far better than you likely have at the moment.
1. Audition some CD players. No, they don't all sound the same, in fact you'll be amazed how different a handful of $300-400 CD players can sound. Last time I did this a Denon multibit player blew everything else away. Ignore the specs, they're largely meaningless at this point.
2. Get a pair of good headphones. Headphones have much better bang-for-the-buck than speakers, you don't have to be careful with room layout, there's no complicated setup or calibration, and so on. You can get a good pair of headphones for under $150 if you shop around. Sennheisers are generally good, go and sit and audition some; the most expensive are often not the best. For portable listening, I particularly like Sennheiser's PX200s, which fold up to pocket size and are good enough that I use them at home, and cheap enough that I'm prepared to risk sitting on them. The PX250 is the same headphone, but with noise cancellation, for plane flights.
3. Get a headphone amplifier. Even a cheap $150 headphone amp will let you hear detail you never knew existed, and open up the sound so it sounds like the musicians are in the room with you. If you like portable, get a Xin mini amp, it's the size of a matchbox and runs on 3xAAAs and will make your iPod or other portable device sound several times better. Any headphone amp with crossfeed will be a big improvement over no headphone amp at all, so don't worry too much over which to get.
4. If you listen to computer audio, either get an audiophile quality sound card, or get an external USB sound processor. I have an M-Audio Audiophile USB, which just craps all over the built in sound of any Mac, and Apple's sound hardware is pretty good compared to the average PC's generic hardware. Again, cost can be under $150.
So there you go, four ways to massively improve your sound, three for under $150 each, no major skills involved.
Of course, you can go much further. A pair of electrostatic headphones will blow away your $150 Sennheisers, but most people don't have a couple of grand to spend on headphones. I'm sure your goldenears friend would be unimpressed by my choices above. I just wanted to say that most people don't need lots of technical knowledge or massive amounts of cash to make a huge improvement in the quality of sound they listen to.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
And I want my cell phone with built in film camera!
micro, 35mm, medium or large format?
Or a fuel cell and methonal tank that would run it for a year!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Is there such an analysis somewhere? Yes. In fact, there's about as many as you'd expect there to be. Here's a quick sampler:
Tubes vs. Transistors: Is There an Audible Difference? (From the Audio Engineering Society)
Tubes vs. Solid State
That's just the tip of the iceberg, my friend. I mean, that's just generally the difference. Once you start considering different design paradigms, there's all kinds of other stuff to get into. The analog vs. digital debate, as far as I'm concerned, is moot; analog and digital can (and do) peacefully coexist. Some people like the way certain things sound, and maybe that thing is a radio from 1938 with tubes, maybe it's your solid-state computer speakers playing digital source.
There is a lot of engineering that goes into making audio equipment and audiophiles aren't all rubbing bizarre cream over everything that enters their houses. Pick up an issue of Stereophile (although for actual reading, I'd suggest Listener) sometime. As much as you'll find it astounding what some do with their stereos, you'll also find it filled with graphs on everything from spectral decay to impedence to power to frequency response... There is a science to audio engineering; just because the results of that science may or may not appeal to you, doesn't mean they're not there.
Don't confuse the two. Just because the PC won't run today's software, doesn't mean it ceased to function. For all the tasks it was doing before, it is still just fine and can continue to do them for 20+ years. The difference is that the external standards the radio was designed to deal with (frequencies, modulation method) didn't change while the ones for the PC (software, perhaps network connection) did.
There are computers decades old still chugging along just fine doing what they were originally designed for.
... just raising the issue that "high quality and hand-made" doesn't always equate to "empty status symbol". That said, there are plenty who pay for the most over-the-top stuff in order to make a (tacky) statement.
I think we're getting to a point where technology is so complex that, as Arthur C. Clarke once noted, technology is indistinguishable from magic. Some people like magic, but many most certainly do not. It's not necessarily comforting to not know what is going on behind the scenes in technology.
This "rebellion against digital" is really an attempt to find technology that those people understand. Older technology provides a decent base from which they can understand the more complex technologies. This is the evolution of learning.
// file: mice.h
#include "frickin_lasers.h"