Tag: analog

  • Turntables at CES: Still Mostly Cheap Plastic

    The annual Consumer Electronics Show has come and gone, with the usual array of new gadgets ranging from the cool to useless, to vaporware. Over at RadioSurvivor I covered some of the news relating to radio. Along with radio and a metric ton of iPod/iPhone accessories, there were some new vinyl playback devices at CES,…

  • mediageek called the cassette revival way before anyone

    I’m not generally one for tooting my own horn, but here at the end of 2009 it looks like I was a good two years ahead of the curve when I predicted the cassette revival waayyyy back in February of 20022007. I must admit that my prediction was a bit tongue-in-cheek, not so much because…

  • The Irony of the Vinyl Resurgence

    Back in the 1980s when the Compact Disc first hit the market there was great excitement in the high fidelity and audiophile world anticipating the arrival of crystal-clean digital sound that would be unmarred by the vagaries of analog playback long suffered by music lovers. Whether vinyl LPs’ clicks and pops or cassette tapes’ hiss,…

  • Obsoletion Watch: Portable TVs

    Analog full-power TV got a bit of a stay of execution this month, with Congress voting to delay the digital TV transition until June 12. The passage of the stimulus bill should loosen up some more money to fund DTV converter boxes to help more households avoid the loss of TV service. However, Bohus of…

  • Film’s not dead, either

    Oh, no. I’m not ready to give up on the anti-planned-obsolescence rant just yet… The world of photography has been much less chaotic than the worlds of audio and video over the last century. There’s really only been one significant technological disruption–from film to digital. Yes, there have been multiple formats of film over the…

  • Nov. 4 Is the Date for More than One Important Vote

    There is a vote scheduled for November 4 that is very easily overshadowed by another, somewhat more high-profile vote. While the nation’s voters decide whether Barack Obama or John McCain (or Cynthia McKinney or Bob Barr) will be the next president the FCC will be making an important decision about the future of internet access…