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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.
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
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
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?
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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.
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Reminds me of an old joke.
Audiophile (n): A person who listens to the equipment rather than the music.
It's all psychological. Or settings.
No, actually it's not. As a simple google search (oh the horror) will reveal, there are well documented differences between the audio produced by digital and analogue amplifiers.
Turn up the bass, and poof, sounds warmer.
Bass doesn't equal warmth; an analogue amp may well produce less bass, but the nature of distortion (even vs odd) leads to the effect we descibe as warmth. Even-order distortion is as unique to analogue amps as odd-order distortion is to digital amps, and this is completely unrelated to bass.
I'm not saying that turning up the bass doesn't make shitty little systems sound better, because it often does. However, most shitty little systems come with shitty little speakers that tend to deal with bass badly (or are just underpowered), thereby introducing a far worse distortion.
Using an analogue amplifier can make a real difference to your listening experience, and you can still turn the bass up afterwards...