Q is right to demand his Auratones.
I love editing audio on the Avantones. They just sound good at low volume levels. Audio playback on really expensive speakers at low level always puts me off. If I have to spend 3 hours editing drums, i would much rather do it at a quiet level on these little guys. BTW – in my experience – artists generally hate these things. The artist will always prefer hearing playback loud, and on the expensive speakers. Be prepared.
I applaud Avantone for being straight-forward and celebrating their product as being ‘bass-impaired’ and ‘real-world.’ I think that if you had believed this 1981 ad and purchased a pair of Auratones as your main mixing speakers, you would have been very disappointed. As a 2nd or 3rd pair of studio speakers, tho, they are great.
Update: Peter got in touch with PS.com after we published this article. Peter tells us that he stayed involved with LOFT for several years after the firm was sold. Peter also turned us on to the existence of LOFT consoles. We have no information regarding these consoles in the archive, so if anyone out there can share any images/data ETC., please do.
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The biggest development of the year in audio, however, was no fleeting piece of hardware: it was a new audio-product-delivery technology that would forever change the world of music and audio. The Compact Digital Audio Disc. The CD.
There has been a lot of discussion about the recent decline of the Recording-Industry. A lot of accusations of poor moral decision-making on the part of music (non) purchasers; a lot of charges of greed and short-sightedness on the part of the industry; a lot of chatter that this was all ‘inevitable’ due to ‘information sharing’ in the ‘internet age.’
Can we consider, though, that perhaps it was not illegal file-sharing that began the collapse of the economic basis of the Recording Industry. Perhaps instead we can trace the problem to the decision to encode consumer audio as data. To forever free audio from issues of mechanical reproduction and the consequent loss of fidelity that occurs every time a mechanical copy (be it magnetic tape or embossed disc) is made. Once the Recording Industry made the decision to offer these digital copies (I.E., CDs) of their content for sale, they essentially surrendered the one piece of control that they possessed up to that point: The ability to manufacture clones of their products which were identical in quality to the original. By making and marketing CDs of their recordings, Record Companies essentially gave away the privileged access that they once had sole control over.
Sure, there were bootleg LPs and Tapes sold before 1981. But they did not, COULD NOT, sound as good as a Label copy. A bootleg CD sounds exactly the same as a Label CD. It has to. And a downloaded WAV file ripped from a CD sounds exactly the same as a label CD. It has to.
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excellent entry, this
Is there any chance you could scan the Ron Malo interview? I've been hunting for it and I haven't seen it anywhere on the web. Thanks.