Evolution Radio

Personal audio devices have taken the musical and audio world by storm. From the early days of transistor radios, the field has evolved to small devices that can digitally record your music or audio books. The devices have become so sophisticated that a 1″ x 1/4″ x 3″ device can store virtually every piece of classical music ever written or hundreds of thousands of popular songs.

The transistor radio came equipped with a single ear piece of limited dynamic range. The modern devices come with custom ear phones designed to simulate listening to a live performance. The music is recorded with specialized recording techniques called binaural or biphonic sound to give the listener the impression that their earphones are reproducing a 3-dimensional world. But what’s next?

Glenn Gould, the famous pianist, thought that live performance would eventually die out as the music became more the product of studio work and sound manipulation than a person playing the piano. This is probably an overly optimistic view of the personal audio experience. It seems that regardless of technology, people like to get together and share music. The future of music will be shared performance of ever increasing sophistication.

Currently, there are composers who write pieces that include the use of ear phones for part of the works. Audio reproduction of bands of all kinds move the sound around the theater in ways that seem magical. As the technology increases, live performances will be of such sophistication that even the most advanced personal audio device will not be able to reproduce the performance.

Posted on April 12th, 2011 by admin
Filed under: Uncategorized