Recently analog audio has had a resurgence of interest.
A good market indicator of this is the recent climb in vinyl record sales.
For example, many classic albums are being reproduced and sold as new.
Many audiophiles maintain that while digital audio media has its benefits, analog still has a more natural and rich tone.
This has creates a division and conflict of interest in the audio community.
Throughout the course of this article we examine the argument and points of view from both the digital and analog prospective and as it applies to musicians and music in general.
The subcategories are consumer electronics, mp3's, cd's, records, musical instruments and audio recording methods.
So what is analog sound first of all? Sound as it relates to analog, is defined as a concussion vibration of physical matter that is achievable by the person ears general between 1 hertz up to and including 20,000 hertz or 20k hz.
And yet we owe the very first inventor of a device to record sound to the nearly deaf American inventor Thomas Edison.
Edison is the creator of the first phonograph, hence the beginning of the recorded analog sound was born.
As the lead cylinder rotated, the operator shouted into the cone that also doubled up as a speaker later for play back.
Edison had released a technology that far ahead of its time, many people couldn't believe it was real.
The future of audio took that essential small step and a large leap.
Its benefits needed additional technology like amplification and recording density.
The lead tin film had to go for the technology to play a good tune, and it to have full duration of the sound, not just a couple seconds.
Edison also accidentally discovered another side effect of his famous light bulb.
He noticed that over time the light bulb had a residue that would adhere to the insides of the glass bulb.
He quickly patented what came to known as the 'Edison effect'.
It would take his rival, Nicola Tesla to unravel its mysteries and to his amazement he found that the electrical current applied to the light bulb was boosted and amplified! Now we could usher in the recorded music.
The phonograph with its enhanced wax disc's and amplified through vacuum tubes and sums of these components brings us to an age of practical recordings.
Now with the advent of the transistors by Bell Labs, back in'47 a new alternative to the vacuum tube was born.
The bipolar transistor change the landscape of every electronic device.
Smaller, cheaper, faster was the new mode of the electronics industry.
More advanced computer's could be housed in significantly smaller enclosures.
The transistor was replacing the tube.
The floor guitar effects pedals entered the market from Gibson with their fuzz box known as the Fuzz Tone just in time for the Rolling Stones "Can't Get No Satisfaction".
The Seventies introduced digital pedals, and they were astonishingly expensive.
Now the records we're tapes and coded magnetic torrents of data a sorta of hybrid of analog and zero's and ones.
Then the laser disc, a friction free recording medium, and optically encoded data registering from reflections off the disc.
This of course is not a natural sound, but capable of greater band width and storage room.
Like I-pods and a-like.
This friction free approach poses a problem.
Remember that pressure or shock wave with physical matter? Its now stored as a digital simulation of that sound.
Most experts would agree that the sound from digital devices doesn't have that natural sound to it.
While others say that white ambient noise can be reduced with digital filters? So what do make of all this? While digital has a greater storage capacity the analog signal clearly has a sound quality advantage because it doesn't simulate a "S" wave, it captures it! In the final analysis the definition of good sound depends the person's subjective option.
I hope sheds some light on understanding the difference between the analog and digital.