This Age of Acoustics is truly an amazing time. With a press of a button we have endless free music of our choice, anywhere, streaming wirelessly with pictures and album covers and information and lyrics all on a device about the size of a thin wallet. Amazing. Walkmans eat your heart out. Yet not too long ago we listened to CD’s or radio and were at the mercy of DJ’s as to what we listened to. Streaming wireless music is replacing radio with wifi in cars and planes music everywhere all the time, all thanks to innovations in technology and a revolution in the music industry.
If Acoustics is the Science of Sound, then we are truly in the Age of Acoustics. Without the widespread proliferation of personal computers and it’s associated infrastructure, digital audio would most likely not permeated worldwide society as much as it has. Tape machines are nearly extinct, vinyl vanished so quickly that it’s now making a “comeback” and audio professionals are as much computer/IT experts as they are audio experts. Innovations in traditional acoustics (The CAT System) and the advent of Quantum Acoustics (acoustic cloaking) have truly taken the world of sound to an entirely new level. Never before have we been able to hold tens of thousands of songs in the palm of our hand or make walls acoustically vanish.
Yet all evolution has it’s compromises. Many older theatres still have Dolby A, and some studios are often just a laptop and headphones. As long as there is economic diversity, there will be acoustic diversity. Even at the highest levels of business and architecture, Innovation + Evolution are being held back by fear of change and convention.
“What is right is not always popular and what is popular is not always right.” ―
Traditional wall designs from the 1940’s are still being used rather than new high performance designs. Fiberglass absorption and bass trap technology from the 1950’s continue to be use, in lieu of new technology solutions many times more effective at a fraction of the thickness. It’s like watching your neighbor ride their horse and buggy down the street to send a telegram at Western Union while you face-time your friend while riding in your self driving electric car.
This Age of Acoustics is at a delicate crossroads. It’s nearly 70 years after the invention of the Magnetophone and we stream audio wirelessly on our smart phones, yet we are still using acoustic technology and designs from the WWII era like the Magnetophone. I was taught that with any job, you need to use the “Right Tool for the Right Job.” When the task at hand requires a fast inexpensive solution with a less than 100% performance, then older, thicker, lower performance solutions are well suited to the job at hand. Yet when the highest performance is not only required, but demanded, it is our responsibility to utilize the best tools at our disposal. Anything less does not serve the project, the client, or the inevitability of technological evolution.
Of course the caveat is that innovation often takes second place to convention and tradition. Electric cars, for instance. Invented in 1884 or perhaps even earlier, it was so unconventional beside horse and buggy or even alongside the new cars powered by internal combustion engines, that these electrically powered vehicles soon became an historical oddity. Fast forward to today and Tesla is the thing to drive.
The EU has made acoustics a national priority as all their research shows that by 2020 over 80% of Europe’s population will live in cities where the second greatest environmental issue is noise. Primarily road noise. Meanwhile back on the ranch here in the US, the National Health Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has passed a law requiring that all electric and hybrid vehicle must emit noise of a certain kind and volume to assist pedestrians and visually handicapped people to hear them better and consequently lower the rate of accidents. In short, instead of requiring that cars with internal combustion engines be quieter, they’ve mandated that the quietest cars in history be louder. And we laugh at our friends who always say they’re moving to Europe.
In 100 years we may all have special visual implants designed to detect all manner of EM (electromagnetic radiation) like Geordi’s Visor in Star Trek. We may need to as by then we’ll all be deaf and generations of humans will be born with inadequate or no hearing, relegating the ears to the way of the dodo, or the appendix. Alternatively we may be able to echolocate and hear incredibly soft sounds at far distances. Like Daniel Kish, the President of World Access for the Blind who rides his bike using a clicking noise to echolocate his surroundings.
The only thing we are sure of is that as a species we have an excellent survival mechanism. How that trickles down into the evolution of our five basic senses is always a lovely mystery.
Thankfully there are many of us who have enjoy quiet forests, dynamic music and have a great passion for sound and acoustics. We hope for the best, work hard at creating beautiful objects which today seem like magic, and tomorrow will become ubiquitous. The rest we leave up to human nature and see which way the wind blows.
“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” ―
Peace, – H
Audiomachine Studios, Malibu CA | Virtuoso Grade ZR Studio