The thing about analog

In yesterday's postI talked about the limitations of turntables and tape recorders and then lamented about the CD's introduction. Several astute readers emailed me and figured I was leading up to something, maybe the mystery product we're unveiling to the world on March 1. You are right. I am leading up to something. But I am not going to tell you just yet where this is going. In thinking about analog I wanted to spend a wee bit of time talking about it. It's gotten wrongly labeled as well, it's gotten a bad rap. For the most part anyway. Analog(as we're using it) actually describes a recording/playback process dealing with a signal. Digital describes a recording/playbackprocess as well. The two processes are very different. Analog describes a continuous process while digital gets there by first breaking up the continuous flow into bits before reassembling them back to a continuous flow. At least that's the broad brush stroke version of today. But as I pointed out yesterday the term "Analog" has taken a certain erroneous, or at least incomplete, meaning in the lexicon of high-end audio. Analog has come to mean vinyl or tape. When you and I talk about analog vs. digital, what we are really referring to is vinyl/tape vs. digital. That vinyl and tape are analog does not do the word justice when used as we do today. LP's and tape recorders were the last common means of recording and playing back a continuous stream and thus we gave them the name analog. But for a moment, try and extricate yourself from these terms. Try and pull away from the idea that "analog" means LP's and tape. Rather, consider that analog really means continuous stream. Yes, that's how we should get our heads around this idea. I for one will do my best to stop using the terms analog when what I really mean is vinyl and tape. That's help our moving forward.