Just because it’s new technology doesn’t men it’s better…
/ Rant On
Remember how clear long distance phone calls used to be? Not any more thanks to digital long distance. Save bandwidth by using a low sample rate. The now generation doesn’t care if it sounds like crap, they don’t remember what it used to sound like.
Same goes for recorded music quality. In this case, the early digital revolution did make it better, for a short period of time. CD’s with high sample rates sounded great. But then along came portable music players and the desire to fit 100 songs in 1 Megabyte of storage. Compress the sound, digitize it at a low sample rate then compress it some more. Sounds worse than my dad’s Victrola and 78 RMP records. The kids love it. I can’t figure out why.
You hear and see poor quality every night on the TV news. What ever happened to the term Broadcast Quality ? Now it’s OK to show video clips shot on a cell phone that are pixelated and jump frames with audio tracks that have so much aliasing it’s hard to understand them.
Even early cell phones sounded pretty good. They used analog technology. But - if we go digital we can fit 10 times as many phone calls in the same air space. The users don’t care that the calls sound like crap 'cause now they can call from the crapper :o
Don’t get me started 
The Audiophiles of the late 60’s understood that New does not equal Better. They were instrumental in keeping tube technology around for a long time. It’s dying out pretty fast now because there aren’t enough people left who remember how good Hi Fi sounded. Musicians are the last bastion for tube amps. Today as long as the bass will rattle the screws out of your car it sounds good. I threw away my last tube amps about 15 years ago when I couldn’t get replacement tubes anymore.
In the case of TV we’re being screwed by the government (what else is new). They want the bandwidth for other services. A previous attempt to go digital failed with push back by consumers and TV stations. This time the government got it through by by regulating the change and paying most of the consumer’s cost with coupons.
Give me a DOS based computer, an analog phone and a couple of Hi Fi Speakers with 15" woofers connected to a powerful tube amp and a vinyl disc player with a good cartridge and I’ll be a happy camper. You can keep your IPod and Earbuds, but I’m stuck with DTV 'cause their shoving it up our butts.
/ Rant Off
